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4 photographsArchive Record FUH-HWE5-P5P4-E
Era undetermined
Reference example
This pipe is documented here as an example for study — it is a record in the archive, not an item offered for sale. Everything below is what the piece itself, and the evidence around it, will honestly support.
Original stem
Yes
Faridunhill standing declaration
Stem replaced or re-cut
No
Faridunhill standing declaration
Rim cleaned (no wood removed)
Yes
Faridunhill standing declaration
Refinished
No
Faridunhill standing declaration
Chamber reamed
Yes
Faridunhill standing declaration
Smoked
Yes
owner stated
Facts, not a grade. We do not score a pipe out of ten: a number would rank a restored pipe above an honest one, and restoration is exactly what this hobby prices down. Every line above is checkable by anyone holding the pipe. Lines marked Faridunhill standing declaration rest on our published, dated statement of shop practice (v1.0, 2026-07-29) — not on an inspection of this individual pipe. It is one document, in public, that you can hold us to.
This reference example is a Medico Gold Crest bent billiard, shape number 70, cut from imported briar and finished smooth. The bent billiard is among the most enduring forms in pipe making: a cylindrical bowl of classic billiard proportion set on a shank and stem that curve downward, shifting the bowl's weight closer to the hand and jaw and giving the pipe a relaxed, drooping profile favoured for everyday smoking.
Medico occupies a significant place in the history of the American pipe industry. The brand was produced by S.M. Frank & Co. of New York, one of the great volume manufacturers of the United States, and it became a household name largely on the strength of its patented disposable filter system, which the company promoted heavily through the mid-twentieth century. Medico pipes were machine-made in large quantities and sold at accessible prices through drugstores and tobacconists alike, making the marque one of the most widely distributed in America. The Gold Crest designation identifies one of Medico's named production lines, with the numeral 70 serving as the factory shape number for this bent billiard pattern.
Dating a Medico presents the challenge common to nearly all American factory pipes: the brand employed no system of date codes, so no single stamp fixes a year of manufacture. Attribution therefore rests on nomenclature and style. The 'Imported Briar' stamp is itself instructive — it was the standard declaration on American-made pipes whose wood, necessarily, came from Mediterranean sources, and it is characteristic of postwar domestic production. Taken together with the Gold Crest line name and the numbered shape, the evidence supports an honest bracket of mid-to-late twentieth century, without a narrower fix. The pipe entered the archive as an American estate example.
2022-11-23
Logged from the Faridunhill archive — photographed and posted on Instagram, 2022-11-23.
2023-10-17
Sold through Etsy for USD 38. No buyer is recorded.
2026-07-29
5 checklist facts recorded under Faridunhill's standing declaration of shop practice (2026-07-29).
2026-08-28
Honesty pass: statements the source does not support were removed (era 'mid-to-late 20th century' -> undetermined).
This record is append-only. Nothing is deleted — a correction is a new entry that supersedes the old one, and both stay visible.
USD 38sold 2023-10-17 · Etsy
From 1 recorded sale — this pipe, this day. A single transaction is not a market price, and we will never print one as if it were.
The sample this sits in: Faridunhill has recorded 25 sales of Medico between 2015–2023 — median $22, most falling between $10 and $29.
The date shown is the date of sale, not the date this page was published. Our own transaction record, published free. No buyer appears here — not a name, not initials, not a country. Counted across both of our channels — eBay 2015–2022 and Etsy 2022–2026 — so the series is continuous and a change of marketplace is never read as a change in price.
Nobody leaves empty-handed. If you hold the catalogue page, the dated advertisement, or a hallmarked sibling that closes one of these — or simply own this model and can measure yours — send it in. Contributions are checked, credited to you by name, and the record is updated with the date it changed.
Instagram post, 2022-11-23. Published to a third-party platform on that date and archived since — a timestamp we cannot move. It is evidence that this object existed and looked like this, then.
The photographs are the identity. 4 images of this pipe's grain, stamping and stem are held as its fingerprint. The handle above is only a handle: lose it, and the pipe can still be matched back to this record from its grain.