Big Ben Ecorce 5443 E Full Bent Sandblast Billiard Vulcanite Estate Pipe

BIG-BEN, spelled with its hyphen, over ECORCE on a sandblasted shank, and a B in a circle on the stem. This is a Big Ben Ecorce, a sandblasted full bent billiard on a vulcanite saddle stem with a fishtail mouthpiece and no filter.

It is pre-smoked, with nothing to report. BIG-BEN is clear and ECORCE readable; a few letters above BIG-BEN are lost in the blast. The B in a circle on the stem is clear. The seller's note reads 5443 E; it is not visible in the photographs.

Big Ben was a brand of the Gubbels family of Roermond in the Netherlands. Their story starts in 1870, when the father of Elbert Gubbels Sr. opened a shop for pipes and smokers' goods. In 1924 Elbert Gubbels Sr. made it a wholesale business, importing pipes mainly from France and England, because no factory in the Netherlands was then making briar pipes. The German occupation of 1940 to 1945 almost stopped the trade, and in 1946 Gubbels began making pipes of its own in Roermond, soon in a larger building of 900 square metres.

At a date the sources do not give, Gubbels bought the small Amsterdam trade company that owned the BIG BEN rights, to sell abroad. In December 1972 a new factory opened in Roermond and the firm received the title Royal; the Royal Dutch brand launched that year was partly meant to answer the belief that Big Ben was of English origin. The factory made 250,000 to 300,000 pipes a year, and more than 70 per cent went abroad. Elbert Gubbels & Sons filed for bankruptcy in March 2012.

THE MARKS

- BIG-BEN on the shank
- ECORCE on the shank
- letters above BIG-BEN, lost in the blast
- B in a circle on the stem

The hyphen in Big-Ben is the Dutch brand's own spelling on documented examples, and the B in a circle is its stem logo. Ecorce is one of the Big Ben line names, which carry no dates in the sources.

A full bent pipe hangs from the mouth with the bowl below the bit. This one carries a billiard bowl, and its saddle stem has a wide, flat step near the shank before the slimmer bit and the fishtail.

The sandblast is deep and craggy, with ridges over the bowl and the shank, and the stamp sits on the blasted shank.

No year is stamped, and the line name is not dated, so no date is given for this pipe.

Condition: very good.

THE MEASUREMENTS

- Length: 127 mm
- Bowl height: 50 mm
- Bowl width: 35 mm (1.4 in)
- Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.8 in)
- Chamber depth: 43 mm (1.7 in)
- Weight: 1.45 oz

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe. SKU: 145