Stanwell 56 Reg Era Hand Made Fantail Canadian Estate Briar Pipe, Danish Estates

Description

Stanwell is one of Denmark’s most celebrated and enduring pipe companies, having been founded by Poul Nielsen shortly after the second world war. Over the last six decades, Stanwell has established itself as both a leader in innovative Danish design and for producing well-priced pipes with precision construction and engineering. Many of its designs were created for the company by iconic pipe-makers in the Scandinavian scene, such as Sixten Ivarsson, Anne Julie, Jess Chonowitsch, and Tom Eltang.

As Stanwell has become known as the quintessential “Danish” pipe company, it’s easy to overlook that, when the make was created, it was the English pipe manufacturers that Poul Nielsen and his colleagues sought to emulate. This can be seen in the branding of Stanwell pipes, from the cursive script of the make’s original nomenclature to the horse-drawn carriage that served as part of the company’s logo, to the dozens of simple billiard designs that featured in Stanwell’s first catalog. It’s for this reason that I’d wager that the curious stem design found on shapes such as the 56 seen here was an occasional feature on Stanwell’s early pipes. Shapes like this one, along with the certain variations of the “03,” “04,” “16,” and “17” shapes (there may well be others), don’t appear to have a specific designer associated with them, but I’d wonder if whoever did design them took inspiration not from the brave new world of Danish design, but from makes like Sasieni and their famous “fantail” pipes. Whatever the reason for their existence, Stanwell certainly doesn’t make pipes like this one anymore, and hasn’t for a long time. This has made them quite rare. As for dating, the pipe is a “registration era” model, which would put it before 1980 if my timeline is correct (on this, see our guide on the main MBSD hub), and I’d go so far as to estimate that it’s a late-1950s to early-1960s make.

-J.M.

 

The condition is good. Darkening and some general wear to the rim and minor handling marks.

 

Details:

Length: 5.2″ / 132.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.76″ / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.47″ / 37.33mm

Weight: 1.1oz / 34g