Loading
Loading
Brand Dating Guides
Preben Holm made wild Danish freehands from 1963 to early 1986.
Updated 2026-10-22
Welcome. This guide helps you read a Preben Holm pipe.
It also covers the names Pipe Lon, Rungsted and Monte Verdi.
He used no year stamp and no shape numbers. His freehands carry grades.
His working life gives a firm window. It runs from 1963 to early 1986.
Each rule below has a rank: high, medium or low.
1963
Preben Holm was born in 1947. As a boy he worked in his father's shop in Copenhagen.
He set up a tiny workshop in his father's cellar. His saved tips paid for the machines.
On 5 June 1963 he sold his first pipes to his father's shop.
He was 11 days short of his 16th birthday.
Soon the Copenhagen shop Pipe-Dan bought 20 to 30 of his pipes each week.
He tells this story in his own article, “The Story of my Firm”.
He wrote it in 1983 and 1984.
One day he shaped a pipe to follow its grain, not a classic shape.
Pipe-Dan paid him more than 15 times his normal price for it.
He also left the raw outer bark of the block on the top of the bowl.
Pipedia calls these pipes wild and dramatic.
They mix smooth and blasted surfaces with areas of bark.
Lon Schwartz had a pipe shop on St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands.
He bought 18 of these pipes.
He then took the sole right to sell them in the USA.
These pipes carry the name Pipe Lon.
The shop Racine and Laramie shows an example from about 1965.
Our cabinet gives Pipe Lon the window 1963 to 1971. Both ends are approximate.
1969
In March 1969 he began to work with Snug Harbour, a wholesaler in New York.
Snug Harbour wanted pipes made in series.
He bought a pipe factory. At age 22 he had 45 workers.
Snug Harbour could not pay its bills.
In February 1971 he met Herman G. Lane of Lane Ltd.
He then closed the series production and let half of his staff go.
1971
Lane sold his pipes under the name Ben Wade.
Lane owned that name. The finishes were changed.
Snug Harbour sold its Preben Holm pipes cheaply.
Collectors soon paid high prices for them.
Later Lane sold Preben Holm pipes and Ben Wade pipes side by side.
Ben Wade pipes have their own guide in our encyclopedia.
The name Preben Holm and a PH stem logo are the main marks.
Private Collection is his top grade.
He says about 2 in 100 pipes reached it. He signed each one.
Private Collection pipes carry grade marks like 404C.
Other grades carry numbers like #1, #3 and #7.
No source we hold turns these grade marks into years.
Diamond Collection pipes have a gold ring and a diamond.
He made only a small series of them.
He made Rungsted pipes, such as Mariner and Viking, outside the Ben Wade contract.
Steve Laug of rebornpipes reports this.
Monte Verdi is another of his lines.
Caprice and Britta Beck pipes also came from his workshop.
We have no dates for these names. Our cabinet gives them his working window only.
1986
In 1983 he had a staff of 20, and he called it his twentieth year.
Then the US market for his pipes fell sharply.
By the end of 1985 most of his workers were gone.
He became seriously ill. In early 1986 he closed his factory completely.
He tried to start again that year. His health stopped him.
He died in 1989, aged 42.
Do not read a grade number like 404C as a year or a shape. It is a grade.
Do not date a Preben Holm pipe after early 1986.
His factory closed then. He did not make pipes again.
Do not read 1989 as the last year of his pipes. That is the year he died.
Do not read “Nobel Prize 2000” on a Ben Wade as the year 2000. It is a grade name.
Do not read 1947 as a year of your pipe. That is the year he was born.
Each row comes from our Preben Holm cabinet. No stamp of his gives one year.
Preben Holm stamp
From his first sale in June 1963 to the factory closing in early 1986.
Pipe Lon stamp
The Lon Schwartz name before the Lane years. Both ends are approximate.
Diamond Collection
One source only: his own article says the series began “this year”, in 1983.
Rungsted or Monte Verdi stamp
Side lines with no dates of their own. The window is his working life.
What We Don't Know Yet
Published deliberately. If you hold the catalogue, hallmarked example, or period document that closes one of these gaps, write to us — corrections are credited. Every open question across the encyclopedia is gathered on the Open Questions page.
Changelog
Sources
Holding a Preben Holmyou can't place? Our shelves usually hold a few — documented to this same standard.
Preben Holm in the Shop