Stanwell Antique 124 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.

Stanwell’s Antique series was one that paired some of the make’s classic designs with a partial sandblast finish, a flared, ebonite stem, and an acrylic ferrule reminiscent of dark amber. It is, as far as I’m aware, one of the few series produced by Stanwell that significantly altered the original shapes such pipes were based on. This one, for example, is a shape 124, which is understood as being the sole shape designed by Sixten Ivarsson in collaboration with his son Lars Ivarsson. I asked a friend of mine, who knows Stanwell pipes very well, when he thought it might have been made. He suggested that, owing to the white, crowned S stem logo, as well as the lack of a registration number, the pipe was likely an early 1980s product, as Stanwell switched to a golden, crowned S as standard later into the decade, before dropping it around the turn of the millennium.

The condition is very good. The one thing I will note is that I think the rim has been topped (i.e., sanded down and re-stained), as I don’t recall ever seeing pipes from the Antique series with smooth rims. I’ve adjusted the price to reflect this.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.56″ / 39.62mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g