Kingsway Real Briar Italy Rusticated Straight Dublin Pipe - New Old Stock, Unsmoked Estate Pipe

New old stock means the retailer's shelf, not a smoker's rack. This dublin never made it past the display case.

The shank carries the stamp KINGSWAY, REAL BRIAR, ITALY. A rusticated straight dublin with a vulcanite tapered stem cut to a fishtail slot, no filter fitted. The pipe is offered as new old stock: unsmoked, with no recorded history of use.

REAL BRIAR was a common qualifying phrase stamped on mid-market export pipes through much of the twentieth century - a plain assurance to the buyer that the bowl in hand was cut from true briar burl and not a substitute wood such as beech, which was sometimes used lower down the price ladder. Seeing it stamped alongside a country of origin is standard practice for pipes made for export rather than domestic sale.

THE MARKS
- KINGSWAY, REAL BRIAR, ITALY - stamped on the shank. Identifies the brand name, states the briar composition, and gives the country of manufacture.

The dublin is one of the oldest shape families in the pipe world. Its tapered profile - narrower at the heel, widening steadily toward the rim - is inherited from the flare of the old clay tavern pipe that gave the shape its name. A straight dublin like this one runs level in the hand and in the rack, the shank true to the stem without a bend, which is part of why the family has suited both a working smoke and a display piece for as long as pipes have been catalogued by shape. The tapered vulcanite stem narrows from the shank face down to a slim bit, opening into a fishtail slot at the button - a wide, flattened aperture that spreads the draw across the tongue rather than concentrating it in a single round bore. No filter is fitted, so the smoke path runs the full bore from tobacco to bit, unbroken by a chamber for a cartridge or insert.

The finish is a rustication: the shaped bowl is worked over with a rasp, wire brush, or rotary burr after the briar has been turned, breaking the smooth surface into an irregular, deliberately rough texture. Rustication does two jobs at once. It gives the hand something to grip that a polished bowl does not, and it lets a maker use briar with minor surface flaws - a small sandpit, an uneven patch of grain - without filling or staining over them, because the tool work absorbs them into the texture. There is no polished panel left on this bowl to compare the rustication against; the texture is the finish, front to back. Finish and grain: see the photographs.

Condition: new old stock, unsmoked. No history of use noted. As with any pipe that has never been lit, the chamber shows no cake and the stem carries no tooth wear.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 150mm (5.9") - Bowl height 50mm (2.0") - Chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - Chamber depth 45mm (1.8") - Weight 40g (1.4 oz)

Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.

SKU: 412