Bentley Former's Design 2-1-9.111 Slightly Bent Apple Estate Pipe, Sterling Silver Army Mount, 9mm Filter

BENTLEY in large serif capitals, FORMERS DESIGN beneath it, and 2-1-9.111 on the shank. This is a highly collectible Bentley from the line designed by the Danish pipemaker Hans Jonny "Former" Nielsen: a smooth, slightly bent apple in briar, with high-contrast flame grain along the bowl and tight bird's-eye swirls wrapping the base, on an acrylic stem set into a sterling silver army mount.

The pipe is made for a 9 mm filter, and the acrylic stem ends in a fishtail bit. The silver mount is stamped SILVER 925.

THE MAKER

Hans Jonny Nielsen got his nickname "Former" as a boy, from his likeness to the actor George Formby. His first job, at fifteen, was repairing pipes for two years at Poul Rasmussen's shop in Copenhagen. In 1962, aged 21, he was hired at W.O. Larsen in Copenhagen, and in about ten years there he rose to run the pipe workshop: he checked the quality, graded the pipes and trained the carvers. He then left to make pipes under his own name.

In 1986 he was asked to go to Switzerland, to modernise the old Bru-Bu works at Kleinluetzel, a turner's workshop that Josef Brunner set up in 1878, and to develop a new high-grade pipe with an English name: Bentley. Accounts differ on who backed the Swiss start: one names Herman Lane, another Dr. Horst Wiethuechter, a third a Swiss investor. One account gives 1987 for the first Bentley sales. Every Bentley was designed by Former, who also oversaw production and quality control; Pipedia describes them as production pipes made on shaping machines, several at a time. He spent ten years in Switzerland. In 1997 he and his wife Daniela bought the machinery, and Bentley production went on at Dan Pipe in Lauenburg on the Elbe, in Germany.

A Bentley is not a W.O. Larsen pipe, and it is not made in Denmark: the link to Larsen is the man, not the firm. Former's own handmade pipes, stamped FORMER and MADE IN DENMARK, are a different line.

THE MARKS - BENTLEY over FORMERS DESIGN, stamped on the shank - 2-1-9.111, stamped on the shank - SILVER 925, stamped on the army mount

FORMERS DESIGN marks the Bentley line designed by Former: he drew the shapes and oversaw production, and the factory workers made them. The meaning of the number 2-1-9.111 is not known, and it should not be read as a year or a grade.

Its profile can be called a bent brandy or a bent apple. An apple bowl is rounded, fuller through the middle and closing in a little toward the rim, and the brandy bowl is a close cousin. Here the bend is slight. The shank ends in a wide silver ferrule, the army mount, into which the stem fits, and the stem flares at its fishtail bit.

The finish is smooth, so the grain is easy to see: flame grain along the sides of the bowl, and tight bird's-eye swirls around the base and on the shank around the stamps.

DATING

Bentley did not exist before 1986, so every Bentley-stamped pipe was made in 1986 or later; this is well documented. Bentleys stamped SWISS MADE or SWITZERLAND come from the Swiss years, 1986 to 1996, and those stamped GERMANY from 1997 on. No country stamp shows in the photographs of this pipe, so its date cannot be narrowed beyond 1986 or later.

Condition: pre-smoked, in good condition.

THE MEASUREMENTS - Length: 150 mm (5.91 in) - Bowl height: 47 mm (1.85 in) - Bowl width: 45 mm (1.77 in) - Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.79 in) - Chamber depth: 41 mm (1.61 in)