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14 photographsArchive Record FUH-R8C5-9DT3-X
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.
| Country |
| France |
No dating evidence has been recorded on this example yet.
Owner-stated. Facts as reported with the piece; not yet independently corroborated.Attribution is our documented expert opinion with its evidence — never a certification.
Rim cleaned (no wood removed)
Yes
Faridunhill standing declaration
Refinished
No
Faridunhill standing declaration
Chamber reamed
Yes
Faridunhill standing declaration
Smoked
No
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.
Hand Made, WESSEX and Made in France are stamped in an oval on the shank, with XL 125 above it. This is a black sandblast full bent oom paul from Wessex, with a vulcanite saddle stem that ends in a fishtail mouthpiece, and a bore for a 9mm filter. It is a unique piece, and it is unsmoked.
Wessex has a long and mixed history. According to Jose Manuel Lopes in Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, Wessex was first a brand of Hall & Fitzgerald Co, a wholesaler of pipes, fancy goods and tobacconists' supplies, whose hallmark was first registered in England in 1899. The brand was later produced in France by Chacom, in Saint-Claude.
The same source links Wessex to the Wessex Tobacco Company, formed in London in the early 1980s by a group of pipe tobacco experts, and says some models were drawn by the German architect and designer Peter Kliem and made in Saint-Claude factories. The name has also been used by Denicotea. The "Made in France" in this oval places the pipe in the French production.
THE MARKS - Hand Made, in the oval on the shank - WESSEX, in the center of the oval - Made in France, in the oval - XL 125, stamped above the oval
The oom paul is a full bent shape: the shank drops under the bowl and the stem curves back up. It is 150 mm long, with a bowl 51 mm high and 37 mm wide, and a wide chamber of 30 mm.
The sandblast covers the bowl and the shank in a black finish. A sandblast is made by blasting the shaped bowl, so the softer wood wears away and the harder growth rings stand up, and no two blasts come out the same. A narrow silver-colored ring sits at the end of the shank, where the vulcanite saddle stem joins. The stem ends in a fishtail mouthpiece, and the pipe takes a 9mm filter.
XL 125 is not explained in our records, so we do not read a size grade or shape name into it.
THE MEASUREMENTS - Length: 150 mm (5.91 in) - Bowl height: 51 mm (2.01 in) - Bowl width: 37 mm (1.46 in) - Chamber diameter: 30 mm (1.18 in) - Chamber depth: 45 mm (1.77 in) - Weight: 65 g (2.29 oz)
2026-10-15
Logged from the Faridunhill shop - photographed and listed on faridunhill.com, 2026-10-15.
This record is append-only. Nothing is deleted — a correction is a new entry that supersedes the old one, and both stay visible.
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.
Faridunhill shop post, 2026-10-15. 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. 14 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.