Morris Bruyere Garantie Smooth Straight Billiard Estate Pipe - Gold Band, Vulcanite Fishtail Stem, Unsmoked

A bowl that has never been lit is a rare thing to find on an estate table. This one shows bare briar in the chamber and a stem with no tooth mark on it anywhere - bought, at some point, and then set aside unsmoked.

The shank is stamped MORRIS BRUYERE GARANTIE. Bruyere is the French word for briar, stamped on countless continental pipes simply to state the wood the bowl was cut from. Garantie is French for guarantee - a plain word of assurance many European workshops stamped on their better work, not a grade name unique to any one house. Beyond what is stamped on this pipe, we hold no history for this maker, and we print none.

What the seller's note gives us is a smooth straight billiard: a cylindrical bowl set at ninety degrees to a straight shank, the oldest and most recognized profile in the pipe rack, and the shape every other design gets measured against. At 42mm of bowl height on a 35mm bowl width, this example sits close to classic billiard proportions - neither the squat dumpy nor the stretched Canadian, just the shape in its plainest and most balanced form. A billiard has no bend to fight when you set it in a rack and no odd angle to display awkwardly on a shelf; it stands the way it was drawn on the pattern sheet a century ago.

A metal band, gold in tone, fits the shank end. A shank band on a briar pipe does two jobs at once: it protects the end grain that would otherwise be the first place a shank splits under a hard knock, and it dresses the joint where wood meets stem. Bands of this kind were common insurance on European pipes for exactly that reason, decoration doing the work of reinforcement.

The stem is vulcanite, tapered rather than saddle, cut with a fishtail bit - the mouthpiece splits into two flat tines at the button instead of closing to a single round bore. A fishtail widens the airway where the lips meet the stem, giving the tongue and teeth a flatter surface to rest against than a round stem offers. There is no filter chamber here; the smoke travels the shank in one unbroken airway from bowl to button, generally read as the more direct, cooler-feeling draw of the two designs.

Finish and grain: see the photographs. The bowl is worked smooth rather than blasted or rusticated, the finish makers reserve for briar clean enough to put on display rather than disguise.

Condition: unsmoked, as reported. The chamber shows bare briar with no cake built up from use. The stem shows no tooth chatter.

THE MARKS
- MORRIS BRUYERE GARANTIE stamped on the shank

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 145mm (5.8") - Bowl height 42mm (1.7") - Bowl width 35mm (1.4") - Bowl depth 37mm (1.5") - Diameter 20mm (0.8") - Weight 1.2 oz

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

SKU: 082