Prince of Wales DEluxe (81 S) Smooth Straight Apple Pot Oval Shank Unsmoked Estate Pipe

Unsmoked. The seller who catalogued this pipe held it in hand and reports exactly that: no smoking history, the chamber never fired, the finish never carried beyond the shelf. An unsmoked estate pipe is the exception, not the rule, and it is worth stating before anything else.

Stamped 81 S on the shank, this is the Prince of Wales DEluxe: a smooth-finished straight apple pot with an oval shank and a matching oval vulcanite saddle stem, the mouthpiece cut to a fishtail slot, no filter fitted.

The apple belongs to the same rounded family as the pot and the blunter end of the bulldog line - a bowl that curves outward rather than running straight-walled the way a billiard does, giving a fuller look when the pipe is set down on its heel. This example carries that fullness evenly: bowl height and bowl width are both 42mm, so in profile the bowl reads almost as wide as it stands tall, the proportion a pot-derived apple is built around. The chamber runs 37mm deep on a 20mm bore, leaving enough briar at the base of the bowl to carry heat away from the hand without pushing the outer diameter past what a shank this size can support.

The oval shank and oval stem are worth a second look, because round is the easier cross-section to cut. An oval has to be brought to shape by hand or by a form cut specifically for it, and the vulcanite stem then has to be fitted to meet the shank edge for edge, with the seam running true all the way around rather than lost in a round shoulder. It is more work than turning a round shank to take a round tenon, and it changes how the pipe sits in the hand: an oval registers its own orientation by feel, so the smoker knows which way the bowl faces without looking down at it.

The stem itself is a saddle, not a taper: it steps down from the shank's diameter to the narrower bit rather than narrowing gradually along its length, reading as two distinct planes when the pipe is viewed from above. The slot at the button is cut fishtail - it widens rather than staying a single round hole, spreading the airway across the width of the bit. No filter is fitted in the shank, so the bore runs a straight, unbroken channel from chamber to button with nothing seated partway to interrupt it.

Vulcanite - hard rubber, sulfur-cured - has been the standard stem material on briar pipes of any quality for well over a century. It takes a finer edge at the button than most modern acrylics and polishes to a true black gloss, though it will fade toward brownish-grey with years of light exposure if left unprotected. That is a maintenance fact for whoever owns this stem going forward, not a claim about its condition today.

THE MARKS
- PRINCE OF WALES DELUXE, stamped on the shank
- Shape code 81 S, stamped on the shank

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

Condition: unsmoked, per the seller's note; the chamber shows no history of use. A faint scratch is present in the stain at the top of the shank. Refer to the photographs for its extent. No other flaws are reported.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 142mm (5.7") - bowl height 42mm (1.7") - bowl width 42mm (1.7") - chamber depth 37mm (1.5") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 1.6 oz

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

SKU: 031