Bruyere Garantie Bent Billiard Estate Pipe - Reddish Smooth Briar, Hallmarked Metal Band, 9mm Filter

The shank carries its own guarantee: stamped BRUYERE GARANTIE, and fitted just ahead of it, a metal band carrying a hallmark of its own. Two marks, two different crafts - the briar turner and the metalsmith - meeting at one shank.

This is a bent billiard in reddish smooth briar, stamped BRUYERE GARANTIE on the shank, mounted with a metal band bearing a hallmark, and fitted with a vulcanite saddle stem cut to a fishtail bit with a 9mm filter bore.

The billiard is the oldest and plainest of pipe shapes - a round bowl set on a shank at a steady angle, no flare, no bend at the bowl, all its character in proportion rather than ornament. Bend the shank downward toward the bit and you get this pipe: a bent billiard, meant to sit lower in the hand and lower in the mouth than its straight sibling, and to hang differently in a rack because the stem drops rather than runs level. The bowl here stands 52mm tall on a 42mm outside diameter, with a chamber reaching 44mm deep - a fairly full bowl for a billiard, giving a longer smoke before the tobacco needs tending. A saddle stem, unlike a tapered stem, holds its diameter for a stretch before stepping down to the bit, which is partly why it reads as sturdier in the hand and partly why it is quicker to true if the vulcanite ever needs reworking. The fishtail slot at the bit end spreads the airway wide and flat rather than round, which tends to soften draw resistance right at the point the smoke reaches the tongue.

A hallmark, in general, is an assay mark - a small stamped guarantee that the metal meets a stated standard, applied by a maker or an assay office rather than decoration added for its own sake. It is the same principle behind the shank stamp on this pipe: a mark meant to promise something about the material underneath it, briar on one end of the shank and metal on the other.

A 9mm filter works on the same idea in a different material. A paper or charcoal cartridge of that diameter sits in a chamber bored into the shank, pulling some moisture and tar out of the smoke stream before it reaches the stem. It changes the draw - firmer, drier - without changing the tobacco or the bowl.

THE MARKS
- Stamped BRUYERE GARANTIE on the shank
- Metal band with hallmark at the mount

The briar is finished reddish and smooth, buffed rather than sandblasted or rusticated. For the grain pattern itself, see the photographs.

Condition: lightly smoked, with a thin cake and no sign of heavy use. Signs of poor storage are visible on the briar - see photographs. Tiny dents are scattered across the bowl surface.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 133mm (5.3") - bowl height 52mm (2.1") - bowl width 42mm (1.7") - chamber depth 44mm (1.8") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 1.9 oz - 9mm filter

A plain shape, honestly worn, carrying two marks that promise the two materials it is made from.

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

SKU: 028