Charatan's Make London England Belvedere 317DC/ Unsmoked Bent Acorn Vulcanite Saddle Stem Estate Pipe

CHARATAN'S MAKE, LONDON ENGLAND, BELVEDERE across the shank, and a deep, crisp 317DC. This is a Charatan Belvedere acorn that has never been smoked: a bent acorn in glassy smooth briar under the Belvedere's burgundy stain, on a Double Comfort saddle stem that carries Charatan's CP monogram in white.

It is unsmoked, with no filter, and the bent vulcanite stem ends in a fishtail bit. The chamber has never held tobacco. The 317DC is deep and crisp; the three-line nomenclature is lighter in places but legible.

The story starts in 1863, in Mansell Street in the East End of London, where Frederick Charatan set up a small workshop and carved meerschaum. Business grew, the workshop moved round the corner to Prescot Street, and there Charatan turned to briar. He became the first English maker to make the whole pipe under his own roof - bowl, shank and stem, from the rough block to the last polish - and the words CHARATAN'S MAKE were stamped to say so, at a time when many pipes were assembled from bowls and mouthpieces bought in from others.

The work was good enough that between 1908 and 1910 Alfred Dunhill, not satisfied with the pipes he imported from France, bought from Charatan instead; soon after, he hired Joel Sasieni, one of Charatan's carvers, and opened his own workshop. Frederick handed the firm to his son Reuben in 1910. By 1951 the house could call itself, in its own catalogue, England's oldest pipemakers, and it still offered to carve any shape a smoker cared to sketch. From 1955 the New York importer Herman G. Lane sold Charatan across the United States, where in the early 1960s it became the first pipe to sell for more than a hundred dollars. After Reuben's death his widow sold the company to Lane, and in 1976 Lane itself passed to Dunhill.

THE MARKS

- CHARATAN'S MAKE / LONDON ENGLAND / BELVEDERE stamped on the shank
- 317DC stamped on the shank
- CP, Charatan's monogram, on the stem
- Reg. No. 203573 on the stem

Charatan graded its pipes by the briar, not by the shape. A catalogue of the Lane years explains that the quality groupings differ "strictly upon the character of the grain", and it gives each grade its own finish. For the Belvedere it writes: "The rich burgundy finish is traditional British coloring - permitting the deep, extraordinary graining of the pipe to stand out." That is exactly what this bowl shows: a deep red-burgundy stain under a high gloss, with the grain swirling across the bowl beneath it. A smooth finish hides nothing, so what you see under the light is what the block gave the maker.

Charatan's shape chart gives the Acorn a single number, 317, and explains that the first digit of a shape number marks the size group, which makes this a group-3 Acorn. An acorn bowl swells out from the shank, rounds generously at the heel and draws in again toward the rim, like the nut it is named after, so the bowl sits full and heavy in the palm. Here it is carried on a bent stem that sweeps down toward the smoker, which settles the balance into the bowl and lets the pipe hang easily. The same 317DC number appears in the Derek Green collection of Charatans shown on Pipedia, there in the Special grade.

DC after the shape number stands for Double Comfort, Charatan's best-known stem. It is a saddle stem whose bit drops down in a small step, so the part held in the teeth is slimmer than the stem itself; this one finishes in a fishtail, which spreads the draw across the tongue instead of sending it in a single jet. The Double Comfort was the one change Herman Lane made to Charatan's production when he took over, and it also dates the pipe: Fabio Ferrara, who studied more than two thousand old Charatans, found the DC mark only on pipes made after 1960. The nomenclature is in block capitals, CHARATAN'S MAKE / LONDON ENGLAND, the form of the London years before the name was sold in 1988 and production moved to France (the script version of these words came back only after 2002). Together the two marks point to London production, most likely between 1961 and 1987. Sources differ on the very first Double Comfort stems - some say the 1950s - but Ferrara's study puts the DC stamp after 1960.

Condition: unsmoked.

THE MEASUREMENTS

- Length: 146 mm (5.75 in)
- Bowl height: 48 mm (1.89 in)
- Bowl width: 41 mm (1.61 in)
- Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.79 in)
- Chamber depth: 41 mm (1.61 in)
- Weight: 66 g (2.33 oz)

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe. SKU: 567