NebraskaPeteGeek

A Kaywoodie Meerschaum Apple Restoration

December 5th, 2025
Photographed and Written by

John M. Young

I remember studying the Ancient Greeks in 9th grade. The whole philosophy of Stoicism struck me as great. Relying on rational thought over emotion was somehow appealing, which is funny because having worked with adolescents for a 33 year career as a secondary teacher, I quickly learned that nearly all of their decisions have nothing to do with reason. Come to think of it neither do mine. This pipe for example, a Kaywoodie meerschaum apple which by the seller’s description:

(Kaywoodie Meerschaum Apple/Ball Rusticated Estate Tobacco Pipe Sold As Is | eBay)

What rational thinker would want to deal with a meerschaum pipe that has a hole that ”goes all the way through”? That is the fun part of rationality, one can rationalize just about anything. The pipe called out to me partially because of the uncommonality of Kaywoodie meers but also because of the shape. Yeah I know, two more irrational thoughts. Then there was the whole challenge of, “can I restore it?” That one I could more easily rationalize with, “it would be a good way to practice repairing meerschaum pipes.” Besides, it is cold outside, there is snow on the ground and the lake is becoming covered with hard water, limiting my fishing.

The pipe had no markings or stamps indicating the maker other than the Kaywoodie cloverleaf on the stem and the Kaywoodie 4 hole stinger. My immediate thought was that it was actually a Laxey product. More on that in the background. Normally I would write something like. “Below are some photos of the pipe before work began.” but I actually had picked at the apparent fill on the outside of the pipe a little bit before I took the following photos.

For the most part this looked like a pipe in great condition. The stem was not oxidized, there was no tooth chatter and it aligned correctly when screwed in. The interior of the tobacco chamber had been scraped and sanded and looked good, except for the gaping hole. This hole continued through the side of the stummel. I developed a plan in my mind of how to address this hole:
1. Cut a piece of meerschaum, from a piece of scrap meerschaum, that would be fit to the hole on the inside of the tobacco chamber. This would be like an inlay.
2. Fill the hole in the side of the pipe with a mixture of epoxy and meerschaum powder from both the tobacco chamber and from the outer-side of the stummel.
3. Place the meerschaum inlay onto the epoxy fill and into the hole.
4. Allow the epoxy to cure.
5. Top the outside fill with meerschaum powder mixed with eggwhite and sand the meerschaum inlay smooth with the tobacco chamber.
6. Dye the fill on the outside of the pipe with a strongly brewed tea to match the color of the meerschaum.
7. Apply a molten beeswax to the surface of the stummel.
Hmm, it sounded like a reasonable plan but like all of my plans, they tend to have trouble when exposed to reality. You may be wondering, “What the heck is egg white used for?” There is a technique for repairing meerschaum pipes using powdered chalk mixed with eggwhite. I have used this technique previously in the restoration of a Kiko Caveman (Kiko Caveman Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek). In that blog post there is the original recipe and instructions as well as an exchange between me Dal Stanton and Paresh Deshpande regarding the durability of the repair. I now have a small supply of meerschaum pieces so I planned on replacing the chalk with meerschaum powder.

Background

Having restored a few meerschaum pipes, I had a feeling (yeah, not very Stoic) that this was a Laxey. The following reasons were indicators: The color was not the bright white associated with Turkish meerschaum, the lack of any maker marks, the proprietary Kaywoodie stinger and the general lower quality of the meerschaum as seen by the flaws.

Like I mentioned earlier, I thought the pipe was likely a Laxey product. Below is the entry on Laxey Pipes from pipedia.org:

“Laxey Pipes Ltd. resided in a historical 19th century four-storey Man stone building at The Quay, Old Laxey, Isle of Man, which thankfully has been preserved.

The company specialised in the production of meerschaum pipes using the Meerschaum mined by the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation in the Amboseli basin in Tanganyika (since 1964 part of the United Republic of Tanzania).

Please note: you may often find names like “Manx Pipes Ltd.”, “Man Pipe Co.” and others more, but there is no indication of another Isle of Man pipe producer other than Laxey Pipe Ltd. at any time!

Laxey Pipes Ltd. marketed own brands like “Manxpipe”, “Manxman”, “Manxland” e.c. Names like “John Bull”, “White Knight” (unwaxed), “Domino” (black, or lined) indicated some shapes / colours of Laxey’s own series. The stems either showed the astronomical sign for “male” or “man” (circle + arrow), or the crest of the Isle of Man, the 3-legged X in a circle. Manxpipes and Laxey’s other brands were available through pipe retailers in general, but also were sold (mainly) to tourists through their own shop in Laxey.

Furthermore Laxey Pipes Ltd. manufactured the meer bowls for Peterson, Barling, Nørding and others from the later 1960’s until 2001. Man Pipe e.g. was a brand distibuted by Comoy’s. The bowls usually showed no nomenclature indicating the orderer. “Genuine Block Meerschaum” was engraved frequently. Often, just the stems were different, while bowls were the same.

Supply of meerschaum from East Africa run out (Kenya / Tanzania exhausted, Somalia inaccessible), and thus the last Laxey meers were supplied to trade in May, 2001. Laxey Pipes Ltd. tried to survive continuing with briar pipes – mainly in the Danish style -, but to no success. It closed down business in July, 2002.” (Laxey Pipes Ltd. – Pipedia)

Side Note

If you are interested, I wrote more extensively about the meerschaum deposits in Tanzania when doing research on a Kiko Caveman pipe. That can be found here: Kiko Caveman Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek.

Back to this Kaywoodie. In trying to date this pipe we can use the stinger as a kind of reference. According to pipephil.eu the 4 hole stinger began in 1924. These early stingers were part of a push fit mortis-tenon. In “1931 when the SynchroStem patent was granted” (Document: Kaywoodie’s Drinkless patent — Pipes : Logos & Markings –) Kaywoodie’s screw-in stinger was adopted.

Kaywoodie’s Synchrostempatent can be seen here:(Document: Kaywoodie’s SynchroStem patent — Pipes : Logos & Markings –).

The move to the 3 hole stinger over the 4 hole stinger occurred at an “indeterminant date”. (Document: Kaywoodie’s 3 hole stinger — Pipes : Logos & Markings –)

The pipephil quote, “Four hole stingers may still occur on pipes in the 60’s.” (Document: Kaywoodie’s 3 hole stinger — Pipes : Logos & Markings –) does give a reasonable ending date to the production of this pipe.

Another clue to the date of this Kaywoodie can be found with the stem logo. According to the Kaywoodie Collector’s Guide from the pipedia.org site, “Early (pre-1936) Kaywoodies had an “elongated” white cloverleaf on the bit, a large fitment, and four-digit shape numbers. The 1936 catalog shows a larger, “fuller” leaf, but lists two-digit shape numbers. Sometime between 1936 and 1947, the better pipes were marked on the bits with a black cloverleaf in a white circle. The white cloverleaf continued on the lesser pipes. However, this was not a consistent convention, as pipes of the same grade could have either type of leaf.” (Collector’s Guide to Kaywoodie Pipes – Pipedia). Again the dates here intricate the 1936-1947 period but show no definitive years.

Using the Synchrostem information from pipephil.eu and the logo information from pipedia.org the dates 1936-1947 overlap from both sources. The issue here is that Laxey produced pipes from the “latter 1960’s until 2001” (Laxey Pipes Ltd. – Pipedia). Okay, I have no actual proof that this was a Laxey carved piece of meerschaum and the latter 1960s are 20 years from the stated time of Kaywoodie’s black cloverleaf in a white circle. This leads to some conjecture on my part. I still believe this pipe to be a piece of African meerschaum, likely manufactured by Laxey perhaps fitted with a stash of older bits provided by Kaywoodie in the late 1960s.

The Restoration

The Kaywoodie made its way to the workbench. Actually, back to the workbench after my earlier exterior picking of the older fill.

I picked at the pit on the outside edge of the stummel to remove the loose material. I assumed this to be an attempt at filling the pit from the factory. The material was white and much softer than the surrounding meerschaum.

As I was examining the pipe more closely I noticed that the drillings were not very precise. The draft hole was slightly off-center. I did not think this would affect the performance of the pipe significantly.

Next I looked at the meerschaum pieces I had on hand. I bought an old “carve your own meerschaum pipe” kit over a year ago as a source of scrap meerschaum to use for projects like this. It had several pieces of the mineral.

These pieces showed many surface flaws. I assumed that these flaws would also likely be found inside the pieces and would only be exposed by drilling or cutting the meerschaum This is what I thought were the source of the “hole” in the Kaywoodie.

Below is another photo of the flaws in a piece of meer.

The piece of meerschaum that I selected to be a donor.

My father, the high school drop-out with a PhD., earned his original teaching degree in wood shop and geography. His accomplishments likely influenced my own interests in life. I remember him saying, “measure twice, cut once” on many occasions when we were doing various projects. I continue using his advice except, I typically measure more than twice.

This piece of meerschaum was selected because it seemed to have far fewer flaws than some of the other pieces.

Due to the very brittle nature of meerschaum I opted to do the cutting with a Dremel and a narrow cutoff wheel.

Below is a photo of the cutoff bit.

I tried a sample cut to get a feel for cutting meerschaum with the dremel before cutting the real piece. It worked! I was amazed at how the meerschaum smelled like talcum powder.

The Dremel was used to cut the rough inlay piece. Below you can see the inlay piece laid on top of the pit.

More measuring and marking to get the inlay to fit the pit was done.

Trimming and fitting to the pit took more time than I would like to discuss. Lets just say it was a long tedious process.

Loooong and teeedious. Eventually I was happy with the shape and fit of the inlay piece of meerschaum.

Next, I need meeschaum powder. I used the same piece of meerschaum and an emery board to generate some powder.

Clear J-B Weld was the epoxy of choice due to its ability to withstand high temperature. The epoxy was mixed as per label instructions then mixed with some meerschaum powder.

This meer-epoxy mix was applied to the pit and worked into the hole.

The inlay piece was then gently pressed onto the meer-epoxy.

From the outside hole, I applied more of the meer-epoxy filling the hole from the outside. I allowed a slight depression here thinking that I would fill this depression with the meer-eggwhite mixture once the epoxy had completely cured.

I did top the still “wet” epoxy with some meerschaum powder, in hopes of giving the meerschaum-eggwhite mixture greater surface area to adhere to.

Below is a photo of the outside fill after the epoxy had cured for 8 hours.

The inlay was sanded smooth to the surface of the tobacco chamber using 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel then by hand with 400 grit sandpaper.

The next day the epoxy had partially cured and the fill had a slightly transparent look. The topping with the meerschaum powder did not seem to have formed the rough texture I had hoped for.

Dinner that night now had to include some egg mixed with the fried potatoes and Thanksgiving turkey leftovers burritos that was planned. No sense wasting an entire egg for a few ml of eggwhite, eh? The eggwhite was mixed with meerschaum powder.

This mixture was applied to the area I wanted filled. As the eggwhite-meer mixture dried, it contracted, leaving a crack and pulling away from the sides of the fill. While it was still soft I was able to add a tiny bit more of the mixture and work it to repair the cracks. I also tried to give the slightly pliable mixture a bit more texture so it blended with the texture of the surrounding meerschaum.

The stummel needed an overnight to fully cure. I turned my attention to the stem. I cleaned it with bristle pipe cleaners and 99% ethyl alcohol.

I touched-up the edge of the button with a small flat file and sanded the stem with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

Then I scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub cleanser to remove the light oxidation.

The shank of the pipe was wrapped in masking tape to protect it from the buffing which I wanted to do next.

At the buffer I worked the stem with white buffing compound hoping to remove the surface oxidation and restore the shine.

The buffing helped but I thought that my buffing skills could use a bit more work. I used Before and After Fine and Extra Fine Polish on a soft cloth to hand polish the stem.

The next day, now 36 hours of cure time for the epoxy and 14 hours of eggwhite-meer drying, this is how the fill looked. Still an ugly scar. Maybe it will look better after the new beeswax?

I proceeded with cleaning out the shank with bristle pipe cleaners and 99% ethyl alcohol.

Next, the pipe was taken to the sink for a scrub with warm water and a nylon brush.

The stummel looked clean but I still didn’t like that scar.

Hmm, tea time for me and the too white meerschaum scar. I brewed a nice strong Irish breakfast tea for me and to stain the meerschaum.

The tea was applied with a paintbrush and it softened the white, slightly.

It remained a rather ugly scar.

I use a hot water bath to melt the beeswax. A small jelly jar with the beeswax is set in boiling water. The water, once hot, melts the wax and will keep the beeswax liquid for longer amounts of time. The tin is used to catch dripping wax as I brush it onto the meerschaum while the heatgun provides heat to the stummel and to the wax as it is applied.

I pre-heated the stummel with the heat gun. A wine bottle cork was used to plug the tobacco chamber and as a handle.

Below you can see the boiling water melting the beeswax.

Once melted I turned off the burner and had plenty of time to work with the liquid wax.

The pipe was returned to the workbench to cool.

The new beeswax application did little to improve the scar. I added additional wax to the repair fill to cover the slight cracks present. This new wax was melted with a lighter to fill the cracks.

The final step was to hand polish the pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth.

I would like to say that this Kaywoodie Meerschaum Apple turned out beautifully, but that darn scar still bothers me. I was pleased with the hole filling and meerschaum inlay of the tobacco chamber. That part of the plan worked better than I imagined. The stem also turned out very nicely. The glossy black provides a great contrast to the creamy meerschaum. Overall the color of the meerschaum is a warm light yellow and should age and color nicely with use. If nothing else, this pipe allowed me to work with another meerschaum pipe and try a repair which went from a problem to a potential solution to an actual repair. It will be interesting to see how well the repair lasts and how the coloring of the meerschaum develops. The dimensions of this Kaywoodie Meerschaum Apple are:
- Length: 6.10 in./ 154.94 mm.
- Weight: 1.17 oz./ 33.17 g.
- Bowl Height: 1.55 in./ 39.37 mm.
- Chamber Depth: 1.21 in./ 30.73 mm.
- Chamber Diameter: 0.80 in./ 20.32 mm.
- Outside Diameter: 1.74 in./ 44.20 mm.
I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Kaywoodie Meerschaum Apple.
A Kaywoodie Tuckaway Dublin Restoration

December 1st, 2025
Photographed and written by

John M. Young

This is the third Kaywoodie Tuckaway that I have come across. The previous two were purchased and restored before I started blogging restorations, prior to October 31, 2023. They are two of my favorite pipes and have places in a three-pipe rack on my mantleplace. Below is a photo of the three amigos.

The stamping of my original two, the first has KAYWOODIE over Super Grain (in script) over IMPORTED BRIAR (on the shank bottom), a 042 on the right side shank and a logo-less stem. The second pipe has KAYWOODIE over Standard (in script) over IMPORTED BRIAR on the left shank with 022 on the right and a Kaywoodie clover logo stem. I identified the newest pipe from what appeared to be an assortment of pipe parts on eBay. Apparently no one else thought this mess was worth the $9.99 opening bid.

The newest pipe has no discernable stampings but it does have a Kaywoodie clover logo stem. The stems of all three pipes are interchangeable. Below are some photos of the pipe prior to starting work on it.

No stamping bottom, left nor right.

The only distinguishing feature is the stem logo.

The pipe was in relatively good shape. It had a moderate cake in the tobacco chamber and some lava on the rim. The stem showed signs of tooth chatter but without any deep dents or wear. The fit of the stem in the mortise was snug and proper. The grime on the stummel made it a bit difficult to see the grain of the briar but there were hints of beauty under the accumulated dirtiness. As for the slightly off colored clover logo, I thought it would brighten to the original white once sanded. Overall, this looked like a nice and easy restoration.

Background

Kaywoodie has a long and colorful history dating back to their origins, “Kaywoodie name first appearing in February of 1919.” (Kaywoodie History – Greywoodie LLC) The history of Kaywoodie pipes is fortunately well documented thus, allowing rather precise dates for a Kaywoodie collector to declare the provenance of their charges. Rather than deposit it here, I will link the two outstanding histories of KB&B/Kaywoodie – Greywoodie’s site has a well written history of the company (Kaywoodie History – Greywoodie LLC) and pipedia.org has pretty much the same written history with a rich library of Kaywoodie catalogs, photos and images of old print advertisements, (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Kaywoodie). I can’t recommend them enough for those interested in reading more about the company and the products. There is a third document which provides information more specific for tracing the providence of a specific pipe or model of pipes and that is he Collector’s Guide to Kaywoodie Pipes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Collector%27s_Guide_to_Kaywoodie_Pipes).
- Tuckaway. The 1955 catalog shows a Drinkless Tuckaway that was simply a smaller version of other Kaywoodie styles. The Tuckaways of the 1955-1968 period had military mountings, filter-free see-thru bits, and were packaged in a leatherette case. Available in Standard, Relief Grain, and Super Grain grades ($6-$8, depending on grade). Miniatures. Two-inch miniature replicas of “their big brother”, complete with the Drinkless fitment and Synchro Stem. The catalogs show these as individually-cased pipes but multiple pipe sets were apparently available. Price: $5.00 (Collector’s Guide to Kaywoodie Pipes – Pipedia)
Back in October, 2025 Dal Stanton published a restoration blog about a Kaywoodie Tuck away that he did New Life for a Rare, Early 1960s Kaywoodie ‘Tuckaway’ Standard 050B – The Pipe Steward. This well researched and written post does a fine job at documenting the Kaywoodie Tuckaway far better than I have done. Dal’s pipe also has the “filter-free see-through bits” alluded to in the Collector’s Guide quoted above. This forces the question of when did Kaywoodie produce the three examples which I have come across? Well the only thing which I state is the above quote, “The Tuckaways of the 1955-1968 period had military mountings” (Collector’s Guide to Kaywoodie Pipes – Pipedia). The bits associated with these three pipes are not exactly vulcanite, nor are they nylon. They are apparently some different plastics. They do not oxidize like vulcanite but they are softer than acrylic. They dent from tooth chatter more like nylon but they are easier to sand file and sand than the nylon bits of Medico or Falcon pipes. The white clover logo does show a yellowing with age which was refreshed to the white with sanding.

The Restoration

After the “Before” photos the pipe made its way to the workbench.

Reaming was the first task. The PipNet with #1 and #2 blades, the Smokingipes Low Country reamer and the General triangular scraper were recruited for the task.

The PipNet blades did most of the work.

This Tobacco chamber was drilled with a more conical bit, as is traditional for a Dublin shape pipe. The Kleen-Reem fit this chamber better that the PipNet and was used as well.

There was little for the General to do, but for a bit of clean-up.

Below is a down chamber photo of the reaming results.

The chamber was sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. The exposed bare briar showed no signs of any heat damage.

The rim had a layer of lava on the back half. I hoped there wouldn’t be any charring underneath.

The rim was moistened with saliva. I then took the knife upstairs for a resharpening on the sharpening stone. A few minutes later the rim was scraped with a very sharp blade.

I was surprised at how clean, relatively, the airway of the shank was.Some scraping with a dental scraper was done followed by an alcohol soaked shank brush and several bristle pipe cleaners and cotton swabs also dipped in the 99% ethyl alcohol.

Below are two close-ups of the tooth chatter on the top and bottom sides of the bit. Notice how it looks more like the nylon of a Medico pipe.

I was able to file the bite zone to eliminate most of the chatter on both the top and bottom surfaces.

After the file, I moved to an emery board, like for filing fingernails.

The emery board was also used to reestablish and redefine the button.

There were still some minimal dents which were being difficult. I thought, “maybe a flame painting”. This is where the flame from a lighter is moved along the dented surface. In my experience this is usually to minimal effect but it did seem to work.

The stummel was then taken to the sink for a scrub with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel hand dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench I rubbed the stummel with a make-up pad wetted with 99% ethyl alcohol. This produced some color on the pad as dye or stain was removed from the briar.

I wanted this pipe to be lighter in color to show off the briar grain. I first started a light sanding with a 320 grit sanding sponge.

The sanding helped but not as much as I had hoped. Hmm, plan-B: An application of oxalic acid was the remedy that came to mind.

The crystals present at the bottom of the jar indicate the solution is fully saturated. Oxalic acid is known to bleach stains in woods. My hope was to lighten the color of the briar. Previous attempts at this have met with varying degrees of success.

I applied the first coating of oxalic acid to the stummel with a cotton swab.

This was allowed to sit for 30 minutes while I finished watching an episode of Homeland (glad that it finally made it’s way to NetFlix).

After 30 minutes I recoated the stummel with a second application of the oxalic acid solution.

This one sat for another 20 minutes. The photo below shows what it looked like dried.

The stummel was returned to the sink for rinsing with copious amounts of water. To make sure the oxalic acid was completely rinsed and neutralized I scrubbed the stummel with Castile soap and a nylon brush. I figured that the basic nature of the soap would neutralize the remaining acid.

More rinsing and then some more rinsing, oxalic acid can continue the bleaching if not completely removed.

Once dried I wiped the stummel with 99% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad again. Far less color came off on the pad and the stummel did appear lighter, though not to the extent I was hoping for.

The only fills that I thought necessary were two on the lower left of the stummel.

The pits were filled with briar dust which was pressed into the pit. The dust then received a small drop of thin cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue). The CA was absorbed into the briar dust and bonded the dust to the stummel nearly instantly.

The fill was then sanded smooth with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

The aluminum collar was covered with masking tape, then the stummel was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 400-3500 grit. Between sponges the stummel was wiped with an alcohol moistened make-up pad to remove sanding debris.

The stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 400-3500 grit. The masking tape remained on the collar for this sanding. Between sponges the stem was rubbed with mineral oil and wiped with a paper towel. This wiping was to remove any sanding debris. Once the sanding was finished the masking tape was removed and the stem oiled with Before and After Hard Rubber Balm.

I thought that the entire pipe would look better with a buffing with white buffing compound.

After cleaning the buffing compound residue from the pipe I was happy with the briar and the collar but not with the stem. I worked the stem with a series of micro-mesh pads from 4000-12000 grit. Between each pad I rubbed the stem with Obsidian oil and wiped it with a paper towel. The stem looked better but not as well as I thought it could look.

I got out the Before and After Fine and Extra Fine polish and worked the stem, especially the bite zone with these and a soft cloth.

That did the trick, the stem looked good. Next I returned to the buffer and applied several coats of carnauba wax with the buffer.

The final step was to hand polish the pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth.

This Kaywoodie Tuckaway turned out beautifully. I was pleased with the way that the briar lightened with the oxalic acid and subsequent sanding. The briar needed no additional stain or dye and has a lovely warm brown appearance. The stem did turn-out nicely. I cannot say that I like working with whatever plastic it is made of but the end result is attractive. I do wish that this pipe had some official Kaywoodie stampings though. I know they would not affect the pipe’s performance and I am certain of this pipe’s provenance, still I do miss the stampings. The dimensions of this Kaywoodie are:

The dimensions of this Kaywoodie are:
- Length: 5.54 in./ 140.72mm.
- Weight: 1.03 oz./ 29.20 g.
- Bowl Height: 1.74 in./ 44.20 mm.
- Chamber Depth: 1.51 in./ 38.35 mm.
- Chamber Diameter: 0.72 in./ 18.29 mm.
- Outside Diameter: 1.32 in./ 33.53 mm.
I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Kaywoodie Tuckaway.
A Gus’ Own Lumberman Restoration

November 23rd, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

The sheer number of pipe shapes and brands of tobacco pipes can be overwhelming. This does allow users and collectors to specialize and find something that suits their own personal fancy. All of these options can be daunting. As an example I put together a list of my top 3 favorite pipe shapes. This list had no fewer than 6 shapes. Yeah, math and choosing were never my strong suit. Then there are the pipe companies. Many pipe aficionados dedicate their collection to a single maker. I find that I can’t even do that. While organizing a pipe rack, my official Peterson shelf has several Marxman and one commissioned pipe in it. Proving once again that I like what I like and care little for convention. That brings us to the subject of today’s blog. I am fascinated by the pipe oddities. Whether they be the crazy innovations of inventors, promotional pipes or the Brick and Mortar (B&M) pipe shop stamped pipes made by renowned pipe manufacturers. I have restored pipes Stamped with; TROPICAL PAINTS (A Tropical Paints Cleveland Pot Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek), DUPONT EXPOSIVES (A du Pont Explosives Promotional Pipe Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek), BRIARS ‘N’ Blends (A Briars ‘N’ Blends (Comoy’s 409) ¼ Bent Bulldog Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek) and TELFORD’S (A Telford’s Canadian Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek). Researching these pipes is a journey into our hobby’s past and to a time when pipe smoking was far more popular than today.

This Gus’ Own Lumberman is a perfect example of that history. It was part of an estate lot which arrived here in August of 2024 from Hardin , Kentucky. I’d heard of Gus’ Smoke Shop in Los Angeles but had personal ties to the locale. The only stamping on the pipe was GUS’ OWN. No county of Manufacture (COM), which can indicate that the pipe was made in the US, but this is not always the case. Below are some photos I took of the pipe prior to working on it.

Judging by the tooth chatter on the stem and the thick cake in the tobacco chamber, this was a well loved and frequently used pipe. It also meant that it would require more time to clean it up. The stem showed signs of oxidation but the mortise to tenon joint was secure. The finish was worn, a further proof of a well used pipe. Overall it looked to be a fairly straightforward restoration. Another thing I have noticed is that heavily used pipes are frequently excellent smokers. Once they are cleaned up, I should add.

Background

I had heard mention of Gus’ Smoke Shop as one of the large pipe and tobacconist brick and mortar shops in Los Angeles, California. The search for Gus’ turned up a hit on the forum, PipesMagazine.com. The forum thread started with a member asking if anyone remembered the shop. Below is a very interesting entry from a member named huntertrw dated July 16, 2023:

“I correspond occasionally with Richard Carleton Hacker, and this is what he was kind enough to share today concerning Gus’:

“Gus’s started out as Boyd’s Pipe Shop in 1927, back when Ventura Blvd. was still largely a dirt road and horses vied with automobiles. In addition to pipes and cigars, Boyd raised and sold chickens and candy and a few other sundry unrelated items.

“Boyd sold the shop to Gus Pfender in 1937, who renamed it Gus’. Note the unusual apostrophe placement.

“Sometime before 1975 Pfender sold the pipe shop to an Englishman named Norman Fudge. Fudge wisely kept the Gus’ name – otherwise folks might have mistaken it for a candy store!

“I first began going to Gus’ in the late 70’s and remember seeing the original gas stove in the back room and the brass cash register that was sill in use. I also remember seeing the occasional chicken feather poking out from the floorboards, and Norm telling me how they got there. Although he had a reputation for being cantankerous, I got along with Norm, especially when he learned I wrote about pipes and had a collection of Sherlock Holmes memorabilia (which may have appealed to his British heritage).

“I met Jimmy and Paula Hurwitz when they came to the store and Jimmy was deciding on whether or not to buy it, as Norm was getting on in years and frankly, was tired of dealing with the public.

“Jimmy asked my opinion and I thought it was a good deal, especially since store ownership included the property on what now was now a main San Fernando Valley thoroughfare.

“Jimmy bought the store in 1985 and I continued to be a regular customer and even put the photo I took of the store in at least one of my books.

“I lived in the same area, as did a number of pipe smoking movie celebrities. with whom I became friends. William Conrad gave me one of his beloved Charatans (which I still have) and David Rose, the musician and I shared both pipe and train hobbies.

“An interesting side-note: David had an unusual triangular pipe rack he had purchased in London. I tried to buy it but he wouldn’t sell. When he died in 1990 Jimmy bought it and resold it to me – at I’m sure more than David would have wanted for it. It still have it.

“To his credit, Jimmy kept the old stove in the back room, remodeled the store to include a walk-in cigar humidor, and still occasionally cranked up the old brass cash register, although a newer electronic gadget saw much more use.

“Gus’ was the quintessential neighborhood pipe shop and might have still been there today if Jimmy hadn’t run afoul of some sort of California law and subsequently was imprisoned for a short while and, of course, lost the store.

“When he got out of stir he tried selling pipes out of the back of the corner liquor store, but of course, it wasn’t the same. That venture only lasted a short while and he sold socks at Nordstrom’s but eventually died of cancer some time back.

“Gus’ was next door to the Mistral’s restaurant and sat vacant for many years (it was always sad to walk by its shuttered facade) until Mistral’s purchase it, used it for the occasional private party, and now plans to open it as an extension of the main restaurant. But those plans were put on hold due to the pandemic.

“And now you know ‘the rest of the story.’”

Thank-you, Mr. Hacker!” (Gus’s Smoke Shop :: Pipe Tobacconists – B&M’s and Internet Retailers :: Pipe Smokers Forums of PipesMagazine.com). Thank you Mr. Hacker, indeed. In that same forum thread there was another mention of an LA Times news piece. I found an archived copy of that article and included it below.

Pipe Dreams

By JAMES RICCI

Dec. 27, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SHERMAN OAKS — Here at Jim Hurwitz’s shop, as at hundreds of others like it, the redemption of the American male quite possibly is underway.

Before joining in the praising, however, you’ll have to put health considerations aside for a time, for Hurwitz’s place is a tobacco shop.

In the last year or two, sales of pipes and pipe tobaccos at his Gus’ Smoke Shop on Ventura Boulevard have begun ticking upward. Tobacconists in other parts of the country also report the trend, for the first time this generation.

This can mean only good things for the XY-chromosome contingent, not to mention those of the XX variety who must truck with them.

Unlike the case with cigarettes and cigars, no one keeps national aggregate figures on pipe sales, but “pipe sales have been increasing,” affirms Bill Fader, the Baltimore-based executive director of the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America, “especially in the case of the better, more expensive pipes, the ones that go for $100, $150, $300 and up, because they’re almost works of art.”

Along with the years-old cigar mania, this is more good news for Gus’ Smoke Shop, which has weathered many another trend, both up and down, in its seven decades.

Gus’, Hurwitz claims, was the first business to open on Ventura Boulevard and is the oldest tobacconist in Los Angeles. Founded in 1927 as Boyd’s, a store that sold candy and live chickens as well as tobacco, the business occupies its original premises.

The eponymous Gus Fender bought the store in the 1940s and sold it a couple of decades later to Norm Fudge. Hurwitz, a dedicated customer, bought it from Fudge in 1985. “I always thought Norm Fudge was Gus,” says Hurwitz, a heavyset man of 46 given to baggy jeans and untucked jerseys. “I guess whoever is behind the counter is Gus–and now I am Gus.”

Gus’ contains two walk-in humidors for cigars and specialty cigarettes, but the dense, moist aromas of more than 30 hand-blended pipe tobaccos in large, glass jars dominate the wood-paneled store. Sweet Virginia, spicy perique, sultry Latakia–these and other leaves vie for a visitor’s olfactories. Many of the mixtures are assembled according to recipes handed down from Gus to Gus to Gus.

More than 600 pipes are arrayed on various shelves and in a glass display case. These range in price from $30 to $3,500, the latter for a massive 1960s-vintage, gold-trimmed example from famed manufacturer GBD. Many of the great names in pipes are represented–Peterson of Ireland, Stokkebye of Denmark, GBD and Ashton of England, Savinelli and Ser Jacopo of Italy.

Although some meerschaums–cool-smoking, delicate pipes of white clay–are displayed, the majority are of briar, which comes from the roots of heath trees that grow in Mediterranean locales. Mediterranean briar, properly cured and dried, is prized for its hardness and the eye appeal of its grain.

Increasingly, people buy pipes simply as objects of beauty, Hurwitz says. Some buyers don’t even smoke. The thriving business Gus’ does repairing and reconditioning vintage pipes further indicates the new collectible cachet of pipes.

The increase in pipe sales, however, is not just another manifestation of affluent American thing-gathering. A small but significant percentage of those caught up in the cigar mania, which brought on inflated prices and supply shortages, have begun to smoke pipes, Hurwitz reports. Virtually all pipe smokers are male.

Wherein lies the potential for redemption.

“Cigarette smoking is an addictive, nervous smoking, and cigar smoking has the connotation of aggressive display and success,” Hurwitz offers. “Pipe smoking is more philosophical, i.e., associated with the professor type, much more laid-back. With even a very good, expensive cigar, you light it, burn it and it’s gone. But a pipe you can use for years. Pipe smoking is about the art of smoking. Everything else is about consumption.”

Hurwitz and his salesmen give new pipe smokers a short course in the fine points of the art: How to choose a style of pipe. How to load and light it. How to keep it from going out. How to break in a pipe and how to care for it.

Clearly, when a man commits to a pipe, he is committing to an altered form of being that values deliberateness, skill, patience and sitting more or less still for a while (it being hard to do much of anything else, especially anything exertive, when smoking a pipe).

Pipe smoking also is a turning away from massed-produced sameness. It feeds a man’s appetite for his own individuality, since the types and characteristics of pipes and of the tobaccos that can be stuffed in them are practically innumerable.

“If you take the band off a cigar, you many times don’t know what brand you’re smoking,” says Fader of the tobacco retailers. “A corona cigar is a corona cigar. A robusto is a robusto. Not so with pipes. They’re dramatically varied in appearance and style.”

In short, these new pipe smokers, like pond frogs who sense change in the environment before other species, may be the first to tune into an emerging male zeitgeist.

Maybe the American male who’s held psychological sway over society the last decade and a half–the compulsive, hard-driving, fire-breathing guy on the make–is about to retire from sheer exhaustion.

His successor looks like he might turn out to be a more reflective chap. A guy who won’t be quite so hard on the tire treads. One who doesn’t even have to inhale to appreciate existence.” (Pipe Dreams – Los Angeles Times)

Well that was all good information but who made this pipe for Gus’? Fine question, that. Unfortunately I had very little to go on. I initially thought it looked like a Stanwell pipe. You know, that whole, “looks like a duck” train of thought. I asked my best source for Stanwell questions, Sascha Mertens, if he thought it might be a Stanwell. His reply was, “I don’t think it’s a Stanwell because of the stem. This is quite an unusual bite.” (personal communication). Strike one.

I knew I had seen a stem very similar to that recently. I looked back through this year’s restorations and there it was – the Marseille Volcano (A Marseille Oval Shank Volcano Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek). Below is a photo I took while working on the stem.

Very similar, eh?

Well the Marseille Volcano was another near bust for background information. All I can speculate about this pipe is that the stem looks similar to French-made pipes. As for the year of production, that too is all speculation. Based on the styling, I would say 1970s.

The Restoration

After the “before” photos our patient made its way to the workbench and a somewhat clean denim piece.

I started with the reaming. PipNet with #2 and #3 blades, the General triangular scraper and the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer.

Yeah there was quite a thick cake with this pipe.

Even the clean-up produced a pile.

The tobacco chamber was sanded with 220 sandpaper with a finger and 320 wrapped around a wood dowel.

The bare briar sanded chamber showed no signs of any heat damage. Apparently that layer of cake did its job protecting the briar.

I was dreading this next part and was very surprised when the shank was pretty clean. Normally a pipe with that much cake would have a filthy airway, this one was not too bad. I used the Cleen-Reem shank drill and it passed easily. A shank brush dipped in 99% ethyl alcohol also returned only slight stains on the paper towels.

Further cleaning with bristle pip cleaners also did not indicate a terrible airway. I was very glad to know the previous owner kept a relatively clean pipe.

I couldn’t accept the cleanliness of the shank and thought it certainly must have been a fluke. I therefore decided to give the pipe a cotton-alcohol soak. The tobacco chamber and shank were stuffed with cotton and I prepared 10 ml of 99% ethyl.

The alcohol was pipetted into the shank and bowl with a disposable pipette until the cotton was saturated. This would sit for several hours as the alcohol evaporated.

I turned my attention to the stem. More dirty than the shank but not terrible. Bristle pipe cleaners with more alcohol did the trick. Some of the tooth chatter was removed by filing the area with a small flat file.

There was one large toothmark that defiled removal with a file.

The stem went onto the Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover (deox).

The next day I removed the cotton from the bowl and shank. The shank cotton was far more discolored than that of the bowl.

The shank was cleaned again with bristle pipe cleaners and alcohol to remove any tar that remained.

The rim showed some lava or accumulated smoking residue in the rustication.

I took the stummel to the sink for a scrub with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush.

I then worked the rim with a brass brush to get rid of the stubborn lava on the rim. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with a make-up pad dipped in 99% ethyl alcohol. Some of the black dye came off. This was expected.

The newly cleaned rim showed no signs of charring. Yay!

The side panels had beautiful grain but the rusticated area was rather worn. I thought about leaving the pipe in this condition then though, “no, you should restore it to how it looked, factory fresh”.

I sanded the side panels with 400-1000 grit sanding pads.

Using black Fiebing’s Leather Dye and a paintbrush, I carefully reapplied the black dye to the black portions of the stummel.

This was a slow and careful process.

The remaining areas were re-dyed with a folded pipe cleaner and the black dye.

As the dye was drying I went to retrieve the stem for deox. The last two stems I have used the Briarville deox on have emerged with a tan crust. I am now wondering if I need to replace this solution. It has been used on many stems since last April, when the kind folks at Briarville sent it to me to try. I vigorously rubbed the stem with a coarse shop rag to remove the crust and any softened vulcanite.

I took the stem to the workbench and started scrubbing it with Soft Scrub cleanser on make-up pads. This produced pads well covered with oxidized vulcanite and the stem started to look better.

The stem was sanded with 400-1000 grit sanding sponges. You can see the two dents on the top side of the stem in the photo below.

And the one large dent on the button side of the stem.

All of these dents had very smooth edges. These smooth edges led me to fear that normal fills with cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) would risk the fills chipping and coming loose. To remedy this, I thought that deepening the dent with a 2 mm drill bit would provide far better surface area for the CA to adhere to.

I drilled a series of holes into the dented surface of the stem.

I used a “Rubber Toughened” black CA for the fill. The CA was applied using the tip of a fly tying bodkin. I also applied a line of the CA to the edge of the button.

The same was done for the top side of the stem.

The CA was allowed to dry or set on its own for an hour. The below two photos who the resulting cured CA.

The CA was then filed smooth with a small flat file the the stem was worked with a series of sanding sponged from 400-3500 grit. Between each sponge I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it with a paper towel. After the final sponge I applied a coat of Obsidian Oil to the stem.

The stem was then taken to the buffer where I buffed it with white compound on a dedicated white compound wheel.

The masking tape was removed and I cleaned the pipe of any buffing compound. I returned to the buffer to apply several coats of carnauba wax to the pipe.

The final step was a hand buffing of the pipe with a microfiber polishing cloth.

I would love for this pipe to go to someone who has fond memories of Gus’ Smoke Shop. It is a lovely old pipe and it should provide years of service. The black dye turned out very nicely and is a lovely contrast to the smooth side panels. The grain present on the sides is also very pretty. The stem turned out well but I do admit that some browning of oxidation can still be seen in very bright light. In normal room light it remains undetectable. The stem fills are nearly unnoticeable without a very close examination.

The dimensions of this Gus’ Own Lumberman are:

Length: 5.74 in./ 145.80 mm.

Weight: 1.54 oz./ 43.66 g.

Bowl Height: 1.79 in./ 45.47 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.61 in./ 40.89 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.80 in./ 20.32 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.54 in./ 39.12 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Gus’ Own Lumberman.
A Made in London, England No Name Panel Billiard Restoration

November 11th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

For some reason the Warren Zevon Werewolves of London was playing in my mind while I was restoring this pipe. In the mental soundtrack the line “He’s the heavy handed gent, ran amok in Kent” was substituted for “He’s the hairy handed gent gent, ran amok in Kent” (Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London Lyrics | Genius Lyrics). This pipe is large and would indeed fit well in the heavy hands of a gent from Kent. I have an affinity for panel pipes of various shapes. I do not recall how this one came into my possession but it was undoubtedly part of an estate lot. The pipe has no maker’s mark nor name, only the stampings MADEINLONDON over ENGLAND on the right shank. Below are some photos of the pipe prior to work.

The pipe was solidly built with good drillings. The fit of the stem to the shank was pretty good but only well fit in a single position. The stem was quite oxidized, calcium deposits around the bite zone and several deep tooth dents both top and bottom. The stummel was dirty with old grime. There were also moderate lava deposits on the rim and several old fills with their less than appealing pink spots. Overall a fairly straightforward restoration of a well used pipe.

Background

In researching the possible history of this pipe, I was limited to only the country of manufacture (COM) stamp. This led me to pipephil.eu for makers who used MADE IN LONDON over ENGLAND. The best I hoped for would be to find a stamp which matched. My first thought was a maker like Comoy, a large factory with numerous seconds brands. Most of Comoy’s lines of seconds used MADE IN LONDON in a circle with the ENGLAND offset. The below photo is a good example of this:

(Comoy — Pipes : Logos & Markings)

There were some examples of Comoy seconds which did use the MADE IN LONDON over ENGLAND.

(Gr-Gt — Pipes: Logos & Markings). In the Comoy’s examples the stamped words are clearly separated with a space. The No Name Billiard does not have these spaces. It is a single stamped word, “MAEDINLONDON”, without spaces.

The next contestant on, “Who Made That Pipe?” is a Conway. The

(Co-Con — Pipes : Logos & Markings)

(Mas — Pipes: Logos & Markings). Mason House is a maker which I could not find any information about. The only thing that did turn up was another Mason House pipe listed as sold on WorthPoint. I captured the stampings from that pipe.

(Mason House Comfort 810 Briar estate smoking tobacco pipe freehand restored | #4592714867). In zooming in and comparing the stamps from the two pipes, The WorthPoint Mason House on the left and the No Name Billiard on the right,

I was unable to make little conclusion other than the stamps were similar in their lack of spacing between the words and the ENGLAND did line up pretty much the same. Maybe I don’t have a discerning enough eye, but I other than those two things I couldn’t tell if they were the same stamp.

The final contestant was Parker. This one I discounted immediately due to spacing between the words and additional information in the form of a date suffix.

(Parker — Pipes : Logos & Markings).

My conclusion is that the No Name Panel Billiard share a similar stamp to that of Mason House. This could indicate a possible origin or merely show that both makers used the same lazy stamp maker. As for the age of this pipe, that too is only a guess. I would say that a large block of briar like this would have to be from post World War Two. The Briar is not as soft as the Algerian briar pieces I have worked with so another assumption is that it is likely from the south of France or Italy.

The Restoration

The pipe found its way to the workbench and a cleaned piece of denim.

I began work with the stem. It was cleaned with bristle pipe cleaners and 99% ethyl alcohol. I was surprised that it did not take much to clean the stem.

The bite zone was filed with a small flat file to reestablish the button and eliminate most of the tooth denting.

Both the top and bottom of the stem were flame painted with a lighter in hopes of lifting some of the dents by causing the vulcanite to expand and contract with heat. This may have helped a little bit.

The stem was then placed into a bath of Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover (deox) for just shy of 4 hours (based on the time stamps from the photos). A pipe cleaner was inserted into the stem to act as a handle for easy removal from the deox.

While the deox solution did the magic that it does, I turned to reaming the tobacco chamber. The ream team was assembled and included the PipNet with the big blades, #3 and #4, along with the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer and the General triangular scraper.

The #3 and #4 blades of the PipNet did the majority of the work.

The tobacco chamber was sanded with 180 and 320 grit sandpaper via my finger. I do like the larger diameter chambers for this task.

Below is the sanded chamber showing no signs of any heat damage to the bowl.

The rim remained lava encrusted. I was hoping not to find any charring under the lava.

The lava was moistened with saliva and allowed to soften for a few minutes.

Scraping was done with a sharp pocket knife. Yay, the rim was free of charring except around the inner rim edge. Good job, previous owner.

Next came the shank cleaning. Bristle pipe cleaners dipped in 99% ethyl alcohol were used for the initial passes through the airway. Once the smoking residues had softened I was able to scrape the airway with a dental scraper. Every little bit of tar and yuck scraped is worth several pipe cleaners. I also used the shank drill from the KleenReem reaming tool to drill its way through the stem. This further removed some of the yuck. Eventually the airway returned unstained pipe cleaners.

The stummel was then taken to the sink for a scrub with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. If you are playing along at home, feel free to use an old toothbrush. This stummel was pretty filthy with years of accumulated grime, testifying to a well loved and used pipe. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with 995 ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad. This produced little color indicating that I had pretty much clean briar.

Those nasty pink fills stood out even more with the cleaned briar.

My idea was to pick the old fills out with the use of my trusty fly tying bodkin. This proved to be far more difficult than I planned. The fills were very hard and resisted my bodkin picking. Ethyl alcohol did not seem to soften the fills, so I tried dabbing the fills with acetone on a cotton swab. This did work though it took numerous applications and about 10 minutes. The acetone evaporated quickly and allowed the fills to reharden. I had to constantly dab to keep them moist while watching TV. I don’t think the TV was necessary for the process.

Eventually the fills released their grip and were removed revealing rather deep pits.

These pits were filled with briar dust pressed into the pit then a small drop of This cyanoacrylate (CA, superglue) was dabbed onto the briar dust. The CA soaked into the dust and bonds to the briar. This sets up nearly instantaneously. The rough surface was then filed smooth with a small flat file and additional briar dust was pressed into the remaining pit, with another dab of CA. I find that small layers work better than trying to fill large pits all at once.

The stummel was then sanded with both 320 and 400 grit sanding sponges. I wiped the surface of the stummel with a make-up pad wetted with alcohol between sponges to remove sanding debris.

I thought that this pipe would look better with a contrast dye. My reasoning was that it would both bring out the briar’s grain and help conceal the new fills. Black Fiebing’s Leather Dye was used for the base coat. The tobacco chamber was plugged with a wine bottle cork and the dye applied with a folded pipe cleaner. I only used a single coat and did not flame off the alcohol solvent as it evaporated quickly with this large stummel.

I avoided the rim with the black dye. The stummel was allowed to dry for a few minutes then wiped with a dry paper towel.

Once dry, the stummel was buffed with rouge buffing compound to remove the black from the surface of the pipe. The dye penetrates the soft grained briar deeper than the hard grained wood.

Back at the workbench you can see the grain of the briar was accentuated with the black dye. I sanded the stummel lightly with the 400 grit sanding sponge and wiped the stummel with a make-up pad dipped in alcohol to remove a bit more of the black.

The stummel was then given a coating of Light Brown Fiebing’s Leather Dye. This was applied in similar fashion to the black except I did not avoid the rim.

After the Light Brown dye had dried for about 30 minutes I wiped it with an alcohol wetted make-up pad. Below are a couple of photos of the resulting dyes.

The stem was removed from deox and I was not pleased to see that it had a light-colored coating over the surface. I used a coarse shop rag to hand buff the stem. Some of the light coating came off onto the rag.

I hoped that Soft Scrub cleaner on make-up pads would remove the light film and oxidized vulcanite.

It did, but it took many more cleanser wetted pads, more than shown below.

I hadn’t seen a light film like that before so I was curious to see how the stem would look buffed. I used the rouge compound and the rouge wheel. I looked OK after buffing so I continued as I would normally.

I wanted to fill the remaining tooth dents. I first roughed up the freshly buffed surface with a 320 grit sanding sponge to allow the black CA more surface area to bond to. I then applied small dabs of black CA to the dents. These dabs were spritzed with a CA drying accelerator. The photos below show the top and bottom surfaces.

Both surfaces were filed with a small flat file then sanded with 320 and 400 grit sanding sponges.

WIth the shank still masked I sanded the entire stem with a series of sanding sponges from 320-3500 grit. Between sponges I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it with a dry paper towel.

I returned to the buffer, this time using white buffing compound and the dedicated white wheel.

The stem looked much better.

I failed to photo-document the stummel sanding, so you will have to trust me. It was sanded with the same sanding sponges from 320-3500. I did wipe the stummel with a make-up pad wetted with alcohol between sanding sponges to remove debris. The stummel was coated with Before and After Restoration Balm and allowed to sit for 30 minutes. During this time I returned to watching TV. Again, I do not think the TV was necessary.

The stummel was then hand buffed with an inside out athletic sock to remove excess Restoration Balm.

The pipe was taken back to the buffer for several coats of carnauba wax.

The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth then finished photo shoot.

This Made in London, England No Name Panel Billiard has been restored to a condition likely better than it’s factory original. The new contrast dye accentuates the briar grain and adds a warmth lacking in the original. The replaced fills blend with the new contrast dye and are so much better than the pink plague of the original. The stem is far better than it was but try as I did, I could not get the vulcanite to return to the black. The dark brown is really only noticeable under very bright lights or sunlight. The finish of the stem did turn out well with the previous tooth dents only noticeable under close scrutiny. This pipe is a large billiard and it has a hand feel that only a large pipe has. For those who love large billiards this pipe calls out to you. The dimensions of the No Name Panel Billiard are:

Length: 6.02 in./ 152.91 mm.

Weight: 2.22 oz./ 62.94 g.

Bowl Height: 2.11 in./ 53.59 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.88 in./ 47.75 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.89 in./ 22.61 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.55 in./ 39.37 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe or any other from previous blogs please feel free to contact me at scimansays1787@gmail.com.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Made in London, England No Name Panel Billiard.
A House of Westminster Burl Restoration

November 5th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

I don’t know if freehand is the correct term for this pipe. I’m not even sure if burl is, either. All I know is that I came across one several years ago just as a stummel and decided that the weird little thing needed me as an owner. I restemmed it and we have been getting along quite well.

I have seen one other pipe similar to this and it was stamped “Wally Frank”. Of course, I didn’t collect a photo of that example. The subject of this blog was seen on eBay back in August of 2025 and was quickly purchased. The fact that it was from Sioux City, Iowa, a mere 125 miles from my home was interesting, support local businesses, eh? The similarities between the two pipes was stunning. Both were formed from what appeared to be small briar burls. Having seen photos of briar burls which are large enough to be cut into numerous blocks for pipe making is the norm. I wondered if these small burls were not small individual plants which were dug up while the digger was excavating a larger “target” burl. Both of the burl pipes had the same general shape with the shank forming the trunk of the shrub and a “V” shaped cut to remove, what I thought was, the more spindly root. The only stamping on the newly acquired pipe was HOUSE OF WESTMINSTER in a single line on a panel of the shank. Below are some photos of the burl pipe prior to work.

The first thing I noticed was the thick clear coating applied to the pipe. It looked as though it had been sprayed or dipped several times into a finish. The briar was also heavily stained masking any of the wood’s natural color. There was a crack on the cut V at the front of the pipe. The stampings were crisp and well defined leading me to think the stamp was pressed prior to the application of the finish. The stem was oxidized with some slight tooth chatter near the button. Overall it looked to be a simple restoration.

Background

As I discussed earlier this appeared to be an entire, very small briar root. Perhaps something dug-up with a larger burl. Not wanting to waste a little bit of briar, I could imagine the diggers throwing it in with the larger burl and sending it off to the cutters for sale. Of course this is all just conjecture but it was a fun pursuit. Speaking of “fun”, not knowing what to call this pipe allowed me to reach out to Steve Laug (rebornpipes.com) and ask what he thought the shape might be called. His reply was amazing, “never seen anything like it…that is wild.” (Laug, Steve. Personal message). I have never stumped Steve before. With that in mind, I said that I’d call it a “Burl”. He replied, “I think that is good”, and so it was.

Normally a briar burl is a large mass below ground, photo below.

(Briar root on display in Chacom museum, Saint-Claude, France. : r/PipeTobacco). These are then cut into the blocks used by pipe carvers.I was able to find another example of a Burl pipe online:

(Sybarite pipe). That makes four that I recall seeing either in the flesh or online. I am sure there are more but being lazy has its limitations.

I next did a search of the “House of Westminster” for pipe related sites/information. Nothing was found on the traditionally useful sites pipedia.org and pipephil.eu. I did get a hit from WorthPoint.com of an old auction listing:

“Gorgeous 1940s House of Westminster Ltd Real Briar Paneled Prince Tobacco pipe Made in France House of Westminster Ltd. Was a Tobacco company that sold Tobacco and tobacco Pipes from their Store in New York NY.The Use of “Real Briar” was a commonly used Nomenclature during WWII when Briar was Hard to come by and nearly impossible to import, and less desirable alternatives were often used, so to reassure the buyer that thier pipe was indeed The real deal, makers would often stamp “Real Briar”” (1940s House of Westminster Ltd. Paneled Prince Real Briar tobacco Pipe France | #4810546746). This pipe looked nothing like the burl in hand, though. The information included was quite vague and contained little detail.

I then came across a discussion of the House of Westminster on the Brothers of Briar forum. Below is the original post requesting any information on the House of Westminster and a forum member reply.

(Pipe brand: House of Westminster | Brothers of Briar – Pipe Tobacco Forum). L&H Stern was a name I’d heard of and had some experience with. With this lead, I returned to pipedia.org. According to that site:

“Ludwig Stern, a successful pipe manufacturer since 1893 and closing around 1960, reorganized his company along with his brother Hugo Stern, opening a factory in 1911. They named the company L&H Stern Smoking Pipes & Holders. The newly formed company was moved into a six story building on the corner of Pearl and Waters street Brooklyn, NY.” (LHS – Pipedia)

Continuing with that lead, I searched through all of the photos on the pipedia.org LHS page. I did not find any mentions of House of Westminster nor any photos of a burl pipe, but I did find an exact match of the stinger. This was not some ordinary aluminum tube, it was very unique. Below is the photo from pipedia.org:

(LHS – Pipedia)

And here is a photo of the stinger from the House of Westminster burl pipe, I tried to match the color and positioning of the burl stem to the previous photo:

For me, that settled who the maker was. House of Westminster was a L&H Stern product likely produced after the second world war and before the company closed down in 1960.

The Restoration

After the before photo shoot I took the Burl to the workbench where I placed it on a cleaned denim piece.

I was able to pull the stinger from the stem without much difficulty. I placed it in a medicine cup with 10 ml of 99% ethyl alcohol.

The stem was cleaned with ethyl alcohol and bristle pipe cleaners. The airway on the button end seemed rough and a bit constricted. I opened the airway with a Vermont Freehand Slot Tool (Slot Tool (with handle) – Vermont Freehand) and emery boards cut at an angle.

The bite zone above the button was filed with a small flat file to remove the tooth dents and chatter.

Sanding the stem lightly with a 400 grit sanding sponge was then done to prepare the stem for a bath in Briarviles’ Pip Stem Oxidation Remover (deox, as I like to call it).

A pipe cleaner was inserted into the stem to act as a handle for easy removal after the 2 hour deox bath.

With the stem soaking, I turned my attention to the reaming of the stummel. The ream team was gathered; PipNet with the #2 and #3 blades, General triangular scraper and the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer.

The PipNet and #3 blades did the majority of the cake removal.

The reamed tobacco chamber looked much better.

The chamber was then sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. The sanded chamber showed no signs of heat damage.

I then cleaned the airway of the shank. This was done by softening the accumulated smoking residue with ethyl alcohol on cotton swabs as I cleaned the mortise. The softened yuck was then scraped using a dental scraper. Alcohol dipped bristle pipe cleaners and alcohol dipped cotton swabs were also used.

The stummel was then taken to the sink for a scrub with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench, I wiped the stummel’s stamp panel with 99% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad. This removed a lot of the shellac and some of the stain/dye. You can see in the photo below that the shellac had filled in the scratched on the panel. This layer of finish was quite thick.

I wanted to get rid of the old finish to see the briar detail more clearly and maybe some of the color of the wood. Shellac is soluble in ethyl alcohol (EtOH, an old organic chemistry abbreviation), so I gave the stummel an hour long bath in a jar of EtOH.

This allowed me some time to clean and polish the stinger. It was removed from the 10 ml of EtOH and scrubbed with a bristle pipe cleaner. I used another pipe stem to hold the stinger while I work.

The stinger was then buffed with white buffing compound on the white compound wheel.

After cleaning off any remaining buffing compound the stinger looked great.

After the hour-long soak in EtOH I scrubbed the stummel again but this time using the EtOH rather than Murphy’s. You can see from the photo below that there was a great deal of dye and shellac liberated from the stummel.

Again, back at the workbench the burl was looking less finish coated but it still had spots of shiny shellac in the low spots and a whole lot of purple.

With the airway residues further softened, I cleaned this out again with cotton swabs and EtOH.

I tried wiping the stamp panel again, as a test, with acetone on a make-up pad. I was amazed at how much color came off.

I decided to give the stummel a 30 minute bath in acetone.

After 30 minutes I removed the stummel.

The stummel was then taken to the sink where I scrubbed it with a nylon brush and additional acetone.

I used Castile soap and the nylon brush to scrub away acetone from the surface of the pipe. This was rinsed with water. I then placed the stummel outside in the sun to allow the acetone to evaporate from the briar. The stummel was left in the sun for over an hour.

I retrieved the stem from deox and vigorously rubbed it with a coarse shop rag. This removes some of the oxidized vulcanite softened by the deox solution.

The stem looked much better with minimal pitting.

Soft Scrub cleanser was used on make-up pads to scrub the stem.

The first pad removed a good deal of oxidized vulcanite.

The second make-up pad removed significantly less material.

Since the stummel was drying in the sun, I used a wood block with holes drilled for different diameters to hold the stem while I sanded it. I like to either have the stem connected to the stummel of a block like this to keep from rounding off the joint where the stem meets the shank.

After sanding with a 320 and a 400 grit sponge the stem was rubbed with mineral oil.

I checked back with the stummel after an hour. It still had a slight acetone smell so I knew it was not thoroughly dry. I did take a few photos of the stummel in the sun to show how much finish had been removed. Sorry, these shots were taken on the side-wall of my truck, not the best backdrop.

I was glad to see that I could tell this was wood and not some weird plastic or space-age-epoxy-resin. Still I wanted to lighten the briar further. I thought about my successful (and some unsuccessful) uses of oxalic acid to bleach stained wood. I thought that it might work here.

The saturated oxalic acid solution was applied with a cotton swab. This was allowed to sit for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes I again scrubbed the stummel with warm water then an additional scrub with Castile Soap and a final rinse with warm water.

I returned to the workbench and wiped the stummel with 99% EtOH on a make-up pad. The pad in the photo below is after the entire stummel was wiped. There was still a lot of dye coming off. I declared defeat, the remaining dye would remain. The oxalic acid treatment seemed to do little. I had been defeated by the purple plague.

All of these baths had made the slight crack in the front of the pipe to expand. I used a fly tying bodkin to pick the old fill from the crack.

The crack could not be compressed and it appeared to be superficial and not structural. I decided to just refill it using briar dust and cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue). I pressed briar dust into the crack and tamped it with the bodkin.

Thin Ca was applied with a very narrow plastic tip.

The Thin CA soaked into the briar dust and bonded it to the existing briar. I repeated the filling of the crack with a second coating of briar dust and another drop of Thin CA. The excess new-fill was filed with a small flat file and sanded with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

Below is the fill as seen from head-on.

And from the side with poor focus.

It was time to sand the stem and the shank-end. The area that I did not want sanded was taped with masking tape.

A series of sanding sponges were used in grits 320-3500. Between each sponge the stem was rubbed with mineral oil and wiped with a paper towel.

After the 3500 sponge the stem was taken to the buffer and the shank-end and stem were buffed with rouge buffing compound followed by a buffing with white buffing compound. I returned to the workbench and wiped the remaining buffing compound from the pipe. The stummel was then coated with Before and After Restoration Balm applied with a baby toothbrush. This was allowed to sit for 30 minutes.

The stummel was hand buffed with an inside out athletic sock to remove the remaining balm.

The pipe was then returned to the buffer where several coats of carnauba wax were applied. Care was taken to work the carnauba into and out of the rough texture of the briar. The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth then off to the photo table.

This House of Westminster burl turned out well. I do wish it had a more natural color rather than purplish brown, but at least the clear coat is gone.The texture of the pipe is amazing to hold. It is like a natural rustication and has a wonderful hand feel. The smooth organic texture gives way to the polished stem, which turned out very nicely. Overall this pipe is a unique piece which will undoubtedly provide years of enjoyment to the next owner. The dimensions of the House of Westminster Burl are:

Length: 6.72 in./ 170.69 mm.

Weight: 2.40 oz./ 68.04 g.

Bowl Height: 1.51 in./ 38.35 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.28 in./ 32.51 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.80 in./ 20.32 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.90 in./ 48.26 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe or any other from previous blogs please feel free to contact me at scimansays1787@gmail.com.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished House of Westminster Burl.
A Mountbatten Billiard Restoration

October 28th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

You may have noticed that I have begun to only post one restoration blog per week. I am sure that you are thinking that the writing quality will certainly improve with more time spent on each individual post. Or, that I will make fewer mistakes because I have more time for perfection. Yeah right, like either of those are going to happen. Anyway, we are gathered together today for a pipe restoration, so here it is: A Mountbatten that came in with an estate lot back on February 6th, 2025. The pipe was stamped MOUNTBATTEN over MADE IN ENGLAND. There was another stamp but I didn’t notice it until after I’d started the restoration. See, I’ve already proven that I continue to make mistakes. Here are some photos of the pipe before work was started.

The pipe had obviously been smoked as evidenced by the lava deposits on the rim and the cake built up in the tobacco chamber. The stem was oxidized with some tooth chatter, more dents actually. The finish looked rather drab, which seemed strange because the sandblast texture was very nice with numerous bird’s eyes on both sides and straight grain on the front and back. I thought that some contrast dye would improve the look dramatically. Overall, this appeared to be a rather straightforward restoration.

Background

For some reason I always associated Mountbatten with Blatter of Montreal. Perhaps it is due to my lysdexic (or is that dyslexic?) brain wanting to see a pattern with pipe names and “tt”. This was the first Mountbatten that I recall working on. The pipe was well crafted with the fit of the stem to the shank excellent. I started with a search on pipedia.org for “Mountbatten”. Here I found the following:

“Mountbatten is often referred to as a Charatan second, but apparently the Mountbatten pipes were made by Charatan apprentices. So while they are not Charatans, they are perhaps on their way to becoming Charatans. A second would tend to be a pipe with a deficiency (in material or workmanship), a Mountbatten would perhaps be closer to a Charatan in quality.

The following is originally from a pipes.org forum post by Bill Ramsey.

“Friends, after 40 years of nosing around pipes, what I have gleaned is this: Charatan sold its seconds under private labels and later acquired the English rights for Ben Wade for just this purpose. Mountbatten, on the other hand was not a “second”(in that there was some physical deformity in the pipe) but rather a first line production from Charatan’s apprentice program. Each Charatan carver might have four or six apprentices at any one time of various skill levels. As they improved and started cutting pipes themselves, these pipes had to move… thus the Mountbatten. These were made on Charatan tooling with Charatan materials and teaching. Bear in mind that there was a high attrition rate and , perhaps, one apprentice in nine or ten made it to cutting their own bowls much less a Charatan carver. This is why you see more Charatans than Mountbattens on the market. You’re never going to put your kid through college by selling one but you’ve got a day to day workhorse of the first order. Good luck and happy puffing.”

Pretty interesting! This is information comes to us from an interesting post on rebornpipes.com about restoring the pips bellow” (Mountbatten – Pipedia).

So, I apparently had a pipe made by an apprentice that had mastered the fitting of stems to a shank and had advanced to blasting, which they were quite good at, then attempted finishishing blasts, which they were not quite as good at, yet. I merely say that because I was not impressed by the finish of this pipe. It looked kind of Play-doughy – unicolor and lacked definition.

I still wasn’t sure when the pipe was made. Reading through the pipedia content on Charatan led me to a convoluted history with several “eras” for Charatan pipes but little to no information of Mountbatten. If I assume the shape numbers remained the same for Chatatan and Mountbatten which I thought was a reasonable assumption, then they would be consistent. Hmm, I was wrong about that. 818 was never a Charatan shape. The pipedia.org does have a single photo of a Mountbatten with a very similar shape number and finish:

(File:Mountbatten 812, courtesy of Chris Rigol.jpg – Pipedia)

The Restoration

As per tradition, I placed a relatively clean denim piece on the work surface.

The ream team was gathered and included the following: PipNet with the #2 & #3 blades, the General triangular scraper with the tip ground round and the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer.

The PipNet’s #2 and #3 blades did the majority of the reaming.

The clean-up was done with the other two scrapers.

After Reaming the tobacco chamber was sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. There were a couple of gouges on the walls of the tobacco chamber from previous scraping/reaming but no signs of heat damage. I thought that a bowl coating may be beneficial and hoped that I’d remember to do it. The below photo also shows the lava deposits that I hoped the stummel scrubbing would eliminate.

The stem was cleaned with bristle pipe cleaners and 99% ethyl alcohol. The stem was surprisingly clean.

A pipe cleaner was inserted into the stem to act as a handle for removing the stem from the Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover (lovingly called deox).

The shank proved to be a bit more difficult to clean than the stem. This cleaning was done in similar fashion to the stem but with a nylon shank brush joining the assault.

Once the shank was cleaned the stummel was taken to the sink for a scrub. Here I used a nylon brush with Murphy Oil Soap, undiluted. The soap was rinsed with warm water.

Not being completely satisfied with the scrubbing, I upgraded to a brass brush and repeated the process. After the rinse I dried the stummel with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with 99% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad. This removed a little bit of color, perhaps a stain or wax residue.

I wanted to give this pipe an alcohol-cotton treatment to eliminate any remaining smoking residue from the airway/tobacco chamber. The tobacco chamber was packed with cotton along with the shank. I figured that 10 ml of alcohol would be the right amount.

The 10 ml of alcohol was applied with a disposable pipette. It saturated the cotton completely and would dissolve the smoking residues and deposit them onto the cotton as the alcohol evaporated overnight.

The next day I saw a purple color on the cotton packed into the shank. This purple was usually from potassium permanganate (KMnO₄). KMnO₄ is an oxidizing agent that is/was used as a stain for wood. Maybe the shank end had been stained this way, certainly the whole stummel had not been.

The cotton in the tobacco chamber did not have any of the purple coloring.

The cotton was removed and the stem cleaned again to remove any of the remaining residues that the alcohol may have softened but not liberated from the airway.

I removed the stem from deox. It was placed on a coarse shop rag where I vigorously hand buffed it. This removed some of the oxidized rubber which had been softened by the deox process.

Bah! The deox had removed some of the definition of the logo. This occurs when the oxidation is deeper than the stamping. The stem was returned to the workbench where it received a coating of mineral oil to keep it from further oxidizing.

I thought that this stummel would look better if the low spots of the blast were darker than the high spots. To achieve this I thought a base coat of Fiebing’s Dark Brown Leather Dye would work nicely. The tobacco chamber was sealed off with a wine bottle cork. A folded pipe cleaner acted as my applicator for the dye and a lighter provided a flame to burn away the solvent portion of the alcohol based dye.

A single coat of dye was applied and flamed.

I allowed the dye to dry then took it to the buffer. I only wanted to remove the dye from the high spots so a light touch was used when buffing with rouge buffing compound.

TO give the pipe more definition I lightly sanded the high spots with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

The stummel was wiped with a make-up pad dipped in alcohol to remove buffing compound and sanding debris then a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm was applied and worked into the briar with a baby toothbrush.

After about 15 minutes the Restoration Balm was hand buffed with an inside out athletic sock to remove the remaining balm.

I covered the stem logo with a piece of masking tape to preserve the remaining logo.

The shank was covered with a layer of masking tape to avoid sanding a well.

The stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 400-3500 grits. Between each sponge, I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it with a paper towel.

The stem was then micro-meshed with the 4000-12000 pads. Between each pad, I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil and wiped it with a paper towel.

I buffed the stem with a blue compound on the dedicated blue compound buffing wheel.

After buffing the stem, I removed the tape from the shank and the stem logo. The logo was still slightly degraded by the deox process. Hmm, I had hoped it would heal. Yeah, unreasonable and foolish but still a hope. It didn’t.

To bend the unsanded/micor-meshed/buffed logo area, I tried to polish it with Before and After Fine Polish applied and hand buffed with a soft cloth.

I chose this white acrylic paint because I had it available, it’s water soluble, dries quickly and it reminds me that I need to paint a few miniatures for gaming.

I worked the white acrylic paint into the stampings of the logo with a cotton swab.

The excess white acrylic was buffed off with a soft cotton cloth then re-micro-meshed the logo with a 12000 pad.

I reassembled the pipe and thought back to the before photo.

And compared it to the after. I think the contrast dye brought out the texture of the blast better and added depth and character to the pipe.

The pipe was then returned to the buffer for several coats of carnauba wax.

The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth.

Well, I thought I was finished then I saw the bowl when I was going to take the finished photos of the pipe. DOH! I forgot that I wanted to give this pipe a bowl coating. I coated the interior of the chamber with 100% applied with a cotton swab. A capsule of carbon powder was poured into the chamber after I had blocked the airway with a pipe cleaner.

The rim was covered with a piece of painters tape. The stummel was shaken for about one minute. I removed the tape, pipe cleaner, dumped the excess carbon powder and blew through the airway to clear the remaining powder.

The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth (the real final step).

This Mountbatten Billiard turned out very nicely. The contrast dye helped eliminate the unicolor of the original finish. The stem polished-up nicely even though I did lose some of the detail on the logo. I went with a bowl coating to address a couple of gouges in the tobacco chamber from overexuberant scraping. The blast texture is very pleasant in hand and brings out the lovely grain to this pipe. Overall this pipe looks well made and of quality briar that should provide years of enjoyment for the next owner. The dimensions of the Mountbatten Billiard are:

Length: 5.61 in./ 142.49 mm.

Weight: 1.41 oz./ 39.97 g.

Bowl Height: 1.92 in./ 48.77 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.63 in./ 41.40 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.74 in./ 18.80 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.48 in./ 37.59 mm. (from cheek to cheek)

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Mountbatten Billiard.
A Marxman Figural Bulldog, really a dog not the pipe shape, Restoration

October 20th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

The other day a friend was showing me the wonders of ChatGPT and how I could use it to write these blogs. NEVER! I do not think that any artificial intelligence will ever understand the feeling of satisfaction of restoring something as simple and inconsequential yet personally important as a tobacco pipe. I fully intended this restoration to be a short and simple project. I’ve restored many Marxman pipes so the research could be recycled and referred to and the pipe was in great shape. Until it became like the “stinky car” episode from Seinfeld. I’ll let you read about that later.

And you’re a good dog. Oh sorry, I forgot who my audience was. The Marxman was in pretty good shape and had not appeared to be heavily used. Judging by the lack of tooth chatter on the stem and the relatively clean stinger and bowl it looked as though it had not been smoked more than a dozen times. There was some oxidation on the stem and a fill in the dog’s right ear that I did not like the look of but overall this looked like a straight forward restoration. This pipe was very large, I feel like I should mention that.

Background

Due to a level of laziness that impresses even myself, I will use the following from the restoration on a Marxman Rattlesnake figural pipe that I finished recently:

“I have done a lot of Marxman restorations. Next to Peterson pipes I am sure Marxman pipes come close as to numbers. I have also written about the history of Robert Marx and how he formed and built up the company during World War Two, not an easy task considering the main material of his production was nearly inaccessible during the war years. If you would like more information I think I did an acceptable job on Marxman history in the following blog: A Marxman Dublin Gold Band Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek. Yeah it’s still written by me, but it’s pretty good for a change.

As for Marxman figurals I have done a camel and a monk/friar.” (A Marxman Rattlesnake Figural Pipe Restoration – NebraskaPeteGeek).

This pipe shows a carving skill that I think surpasses the carvings of the previous Marxman figural pipe that I have done. Though the camel pipe is also of high quality. The briar used must have been a very substantial piece of wood for the time. I would place this pipe also within the late 1940s-1953 time frame. All of the Marxman pipes from this period were carved in New York City.

The Restoration

After the “before” photos the pipe was taken to the workbench where it got to sit on the Barely used denim piece. I say barely used since the last restoration (I linked it if you are curious) was so darn clean I had little chance to dirty the denim.

I was able to pull the stinger from the stem with little effort.

I place the stinger into a medicine cup with 10ml of 99% ethyl alcohol to start it’s cleaning.

While the stinger soaked I cleaned the airway of the stem with alcohol and bristle pipe cleaners.

A look down the mortise showed little smoking residue.

The ream team was gathered and included the PipNet and the General triangular scraper.

There was a surprising amount of cake removed with the PipNet and the #2 blades.

The reamed tobacco chamber looked better but would need sanding to check for any damage to the chamber walls.

Sure enough, sanding did show some light heat fissures. These would be addressed with a bowl coating.

The shank cleaning was done with cotton swabs and bristle pipe cleaners dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol.

The stem was lightly sanded in preparation for a soaking in Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover, also known as deox.

A pipe cleaner was inserted into the tenon to act as a handle for retrieving the stem after a 6 hour soak.

The stummel was scrubbed with Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench the stummel was wiped with 95% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad. The briar looked bare of any finish except for a few places in the depressions of the carvings.

In the photo below, you can see a pit and a small patch of a clear coat or lacquer.

The left ear of the bulldog must have also had a pit which was filled with the dreaded pink goo used as a filler. I was thinking of methods to smooth out that lump of goo.

This pipe had an aroma which I refer to as “granny purse”. It is that smell that my grandmother’s purse had, kind of like something which had been repeatedly exposed to perfume where the perfume smell lingers long after it should. I thought that it was due to the previous owner smoking a Lakeland blend containing geranium oil. I figured that an alcohol and cotton treatment would rid the pipe of the floral ghost and allow me some time to think of ways to fix that ear. The tobacco chamber and shank were packed with cotton.

95% ethyl alcohol was added to the cotton with a disposable pipette until the cotton was saturated.

The alcohol cotton treatment would take an overnight wait so I turned to cleaning the stinger.

Since the pipe’s stem was still soaking in deox, I found an extra stem which fit the stinger. This stem would provide me with a handle for buffing/polishing the stinger on the buffer.

The stinger was buffed using a blue compound and looked much better.

After the buffing and the removal of any remaining blue compound the stinger looked great.

Below is a photo of the saturated cotton as I headed to bed.

The next day the majority of the alcohol had evaporated. This evaporation allows the alcohol to dissolve smoking residues and draw them into the cotton where they are deposited.

I removed the cotton. The cotton in the shank had a strange pick color. The briar did not stain the make-up pad with alcohol pink as it would if a red dye had been used to stain the briar. What is this? I wondered.

I used a couple of cotton swabs to re-clean the shank.

To address the pit, I used briar dust and thin cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue). The pit received a tiny drop of CA which then had briar dust pressed into it. The briar dust then received another drop of CA.

The fill was then filed with a small flat file and smoothed with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

My thinking of ways to fix the pink-goo-ear-fill was to re-carve it using a Dremel rotary tool. The first bit I used was the pointy bit, below.

The second bit used was more rounded to allow for a smoother finish.

Below is a photo of the re-carved ear. I could only see a tiny pit which I did not think required all that pink-goo.

The stummel was sanded with 400 then 600 grit sanding sponges. I did not want to over-sand and remove any detail of the carving.

The stummel was then coated in Before and After Restoration Balm, applied with a baby toothbrush, and allowed to sit for 30 minutes.

The stem was removed from deox. What was supposed to be a six hour soak turned into an 18 hour soak. The stem was vigorously rubbed with a coarse shop rag. This allows for the absorption of excess solution and removes some oxidized rubber.

The stem appeared to be pitted from the deox removing oxidized rubber.

I applied a coating of Mark Hoover’s Before and After Hard Rubber Balm. I thought that this might help condition the vulcanite, this was allowed to rest for 6 hours.

The Restoration Balm was wiped from the stummel using an inside out athletic sock.

When I returned to the stem, I wiped the remaining Hard Rubber Balm off with a dry paper towel. The shank of the pipe was wrapped in masking tape to protect the shank from the sanding. I then started sanding the stem with a series of sanding sponges from 320-1000 grit. Between each sponge I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it with a dry paper towel.

There was still a lingering granny purse smell to this pipe. I thought another alcohol cotton treatment might remedy that.

The cotton was removed the next day and it was still pulling some of that pink color from the airway of the shank. Was this the source of the granny purse aroma?

The tape was removed and cleaned with alcohol to rid the shank of any residual adhesive. I then worked a bit of the Before and After Restoration Balm into the briar there and around the rim. After that sat for 10 minutes I again wiped it with the athletic sock and took the pipe to the buffer for a few coats of carnauba wax.

The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth.

This Marxman Figural Bulldog is a true beauty. It is a handful of a pipe and weighs in at over 3 ounces (88.45 g). The amazing thing is that it clenches very well and does not feel nearly that heavy. The expressive eyes of the carving are an indication of the skill of the carver and the quality of the carving. The fill and the recarving of the ear that I did, were small touches which I think added to the pipe. The briar itself must have been huge for this time period, just based on the size of the block, I am thinking this pipe was made after World War Two. The dimensions of the Marman Figural Bulldog pipe are:

Length: 7 in./178 mm.

Weight: 3.12 oz./ 88.45 g.

Bowl Height: 2.00 in./ 50.80 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.44 in./ 36.58 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.72 in./ 18.29 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.77 in./ 44.96 mm. (from cheek to cheek)

Oh, I almost forgot. Did the second alcohol cotton treatment exorcise the “granny purse” ghost? Mostly. There still remains a very slight hint of the geranium oil. I think that it should disappear with a couple of bowls of pipe tobacco.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Marman Figural Bulldog.
A Big Ben Classic Line 702 Bent Bulldog Restoration?

October 2nd, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

Have you ever wondered how to use the terms Dutch, Holland or the Netherlands? Well, this pipe may help. The pipe was made in Holland, two of twelve provinces of the country known as the Netherlands. Yeah, there are two Hollands, a north and a south. The makers of the pipe were Dutch, referring to the culture and language of the region. Okay, I have shown off my undergraduate geography major for four years quite enough for one day.

This pipe caught my eye on eBay recently. I was taken by both the shape and the price. I immediately sent Sascha Mertens a private message via Facebook, asking if it was a good deal. He replied quickly, as usual, saying that it was indeed a good deal for a relatively rare and desirable shape. He had me at “good deal”. I can’t say I place too much emphasis on popular things, I know what I like. While we are talking about Sascha, he keeps me laughing with his complaints of purchasing pipes that are very clean. Yeah, he complains when a pipe is too clean and does not provide him with the opportunity or challenge of cleaning them up himself. This pipe is a wonderful example of that. I think it had only been smoked once. I now completely understand Sascha’s disappointment. Below are some photos of the Big Ben 702 before I did any work, if you can call it that, on it.

The pipe was nearly brand new. There was some unsmoked tobacco remnants in the bowl and a very minimal residue on the rim. I cannot even call it lava. The stem was slightly oxidized due to age with maybe a few light tooth marks. The only other thing to complain about was a slight wax build-up in the beading. This was going to be an “easy button” restoration.

Background

I first searched Big Ben on pipephil.eu:

Here I found very similar stamps but no reference to the Classic Line.

(Big Ben — Pipes : Logos & Markings)

The next search was on pipedia.org. Here too, the entry was lacking specificity for the Classic Line. Well actually it was lacking pretty much everything stating only, “The brand name Big Ben was originally owned by a small trade company in Amsterdam which was already well established in several countries selling pipes among other goods. The firm was bought by Elbert Gubbels & Zonen B.V. – see Gubbels – who were in search for a suitable brand name to further expansion on international markets.

Big Ben became Gubbels’ mainstay brand with it’s own website” (Big Ben – Pipedia).

I did follow the link from pipedia.org to the Gubbbels’ website: Want to buy a Big Ben pipe? The best tobacco pipes since 1870 – bigben. This site was a nice shopping and informational site. I found the most impressive thing was that they opened the workshop up to the public every Friday from 10:00am-4:00pm. Here in the US, that would likely meet with stern warnings from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

“Our store is open every Friday! We cordially invite you to take a look at our production workshop. In our store you will find a wide range of Big Ben pipes in all shapes and colors. If your ideal pipe is not listed, we may be able to manufacture a pipe especially for you! Light maintenance of your beloved old pipe can usually be done on site.

Making a pipe requires craftsmanship, a lot of fingerspitzengefühl and experience in working with the unpredictable and capricious material: the root of the Erica Arborea, better known as briar wood. Formed by the rocky bottom of the Mediterranean region, this noble and beautifully textured wood contributes its 50 to 80 years of growth to the value of the pipe. We are proud to be able to tell you the whole story – from carrot to tobacco pipe!

We are open every Friday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. On all other days you can visit us by appointment.

We look forward to seeing you in Beegden (Limburg)!” (Want to buy a Big Ben pipe? The best tobacco pipes since 1870 – bigben)

There was also a very nice history of the company and a look into their future. It is quite detailed so I will not include it here but this link will take you there if you are interested in a very interesting history.

The Restoration

The restoration began with a clean denim piece which I felt certain would remain clean upon finishing.

I lexamined the tobacco chamber more closely under the bright lights of the workbench. Only smoked once or twice, was my conclusion.

The look down the mortise reaffirmed my thinking.

The reaming of this tobacco chamber only required a brass bore brush, from a 20 guage shotgun and a light scrape from the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer.

I swabbed out the chamber with an alcohol dipped cotton swab. Below you can see that the reaming only produced a tiny bit of carbon and a few flakes of tobacco.

The shank was cleaned out using 99% ethyl alcohol on cotton swabs.
These too, came back with little grime.

The stem was cleaned with alcohol and a bristle pipe cleaner.

I used a dental scraper to clear the majority of the wax that was built-up in the bead around the bowl.

The light residue on the rim was removed with saliva and a cotton make-up pad.

I took the stummel to the sink for what was probably an unnecessary scrubbing with undiluted Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush.
Some habits are hard to break.
The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Back at the workbench, the stem had a slight residue, likely from the airway cleaning.

I rubbed the stem with alcohol on a make-up pad and did get some oxidized vulcanite from the surface.

The stem was taken to the buffer where it was buffed with a blue buffing compound.
This removed any additional oxidation along with the slight tooth chatter.
It also dulled the bright silver of the stem logo.

To replace the silver, I used Silver Leaf Rub’nBuff. Before applying the fresh silver, I cleaned the logo with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol.

The silver leaf was applied and hand-buffed with a soft cotton cloth.

The resulting fresh silver was back to its original bright finish.

The pipe was given several coats of carnauba wax with the buffer.

The final step was another hand buff with the microfiber polishing cloth.

This beautiful Big Ben Classic Line 702 did not need very much work. I love the shape and the balance of this pipe. It fits my hand well and clenches like a dream. The contrast dye was well done at the factory and really accentuates the briar. THe bright nickel accent on the stem goes very nicely with the silver stem logo. This is just a classy comfortable pipe that I am glad to add to my personal collection. The dimensions of the Big Ben Classic Line 702 are:

Length: 4.74 in./ 120.40 mm.

Weight: 1.48 oz./ 41.96 g.

Bowl Height: 1.97 in./ 50.04 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.57 in./ 39.88 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.68 in./ 17.27 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.63 in./ 41.40 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Big Ben Classic Line 702.
A Thompson Block Meerschaum Billiard Restoration

September 30th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

I have thought, “a billiard is a billiard”. I’ll admit that it is not my favorite shape for a pipe. Sure it is a classic and probably the most popular of pipe shapes, with its cylindrical bowl perpendicular to a round shank. Symmetrically, the shank and bowl are proportional, giving the pipe a look of balanced elegance. This Thompson billiard has all of those characteristics though its shank is more stout or substantial than a typical billiard. This trait reminded me of a Peterson pipe, renowned for their more substantial shanks. Perhaps that is what drew me to this particular pipe. That and the fact that I was able to get a high quality British-made block meerschaum pipe for quite a reasonable bid. Below are some photos taken of the pipe prior to any work done.

The pipe was in great shape, sure there were a couple of chips on the stummel but that added character to the pipe. The bowl had a light cake built up which would have to be carefully reamed but the rim looked pristine. The stem appeared slightly pitted. I do not know if that was the intended look or if that was a product of aging. Either way it would be sanded and polished. The shank end appeared to be very clean and the stem had no tooth chatter. This looked like an easy restoration.

Background

Having restored a few meerschaums I immediately thought that this specimen had to be a Laxey Pipe Ltd. product. I knew of no other British meerschaum makers. I tried searching for “Thompson” on both pipedia.org and pipephil.eu and came up with nothing. I then went to rebornpipes.com, Steve Laug’s catalog of restorations would certainly contain some information. It did: Thompson Meerschaum Pipes | rebornpipes. In this blog entry Steve references a restoration done by Dal Stanton, Diving into the Provenance of a Thompson Genuine Block Meerschaum GT. Britain Brandy – The Pipe Steward. I will use Dal’s research as the best source of information regarding the Thompson Block Meerschaum and quote it below:

“My research on the origins of the Thompson Block Meerschaum name can be summarized like this: It was made with African Meerschaum from the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation (Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation – Pipedia) and produced by Laxey Pipe Ltd. on the Isle of Man. This conclusion was deduced from comments made about Thompson from various pipe forum threads. Here is one example from Pipesmagazine.com (2012) among several that I found that demonstrates what I have found generally:

@tschiraldi – Thanks! It’s my understanding that the Thompson Meerschaum pipes were made by the Manx Meerschaum Company on the Isle of Mann (Great Britain). Back story is that my 3x Great Grandfather was Sir Hall Caine who was a famous author known as the Manx Man and lived on the Isle of Mann. I thought it would be cool to own a pipe made by the Manx Meerschaum Company which was made on the Isle of Mann. Just thought it was interesting.

“It’s my understanding…” is the key idea. I found several comments with the assumption that Thompson Block Meerschaum pipes were produced by ‘Manx’ or ‘Laxey’ – the same producer. When doing the research on James’ first commission, I discovered that the Laxey Co. produced the Peterson’s Meerschaum. Here is the Pipedia information on Laxey Pipes Ltd.:

Laxey Pipes Ltd. resided in a historical 19th century four-storey Man stone building at The Quay, Old Laxey, Isle of Man, which thankfully has been preserved.

The company specialized in the production of meerschaum pipes using the Meerschaum mined by the Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation in the Amboseli basin in Tanganyika (since 1964 part of the United Republic of Tanzania).

Please note: you may often find names like “Manx Pipes Ltd.”, “Man Pipe Co.” and others more, but there is no indication of another Isle of Man pipe producer other than Laxey Pipe Ltd. at any time!

Laxey Pipes Ltd. marketed their own brands like “Manxpipe”, “Manxman”, “Manxland” e.c. Names like “John Bull”, “White Knight” (unwaxed), “Domino” (black, or lined) indicated some shapes / colours of Laxey’s own series. The stems either showed the astronomical sign for “male” or “man” (circle + arrow), or the crest of the Isle of Man, the 3-legged X in a circle. Manxpipes and Laxey’s other brands were available through pipe retailers in general, but also were sold (mainly) to tourists through their own shop in Laxey.

Furthermore Laxey Pipes Ltd. manufactured the meer bowls for Peterson, Barling, Nørding and others from the later 1960’s until 2001. Man Pipe e.g. was a brand distributed by Comoy’s. The bowls usually showed no nomenclature indicating the orderer. “Genuine Block Meerschaum” was engraved frequently. Often, just the stems were different, while bowls were the same.

Supply of meerschaum from East Africa ran out (Kenya / Tanzania exhausted, Somalia inaccessible), and thus the last Laxey meers were supplied to trade in May, 2001. Laxey Pipes Ltd. tried to survive continuing with briar pipes – mainly in the Danish style -, but to no success. It closed down business in July 2002.

In this article from Pipedia, there is no direct mention of Thompson Block Meerschaum however, it was left open that there were other brands produced from the 1960s until 2001 beyond those mentioned – Peterson, Barling, and Nording.

I tend to agree with the sentiments of the Thompson Block Meerschaum pipes being produced by Laxey. Why? First, with the COM being ‘GT. Britain’ leaves few options (if any) of a Meer block being produced other than on the Isle of Man. Secondly, the Thompson on the worktable resembles other products of Laxey with the smokestack coloring and the usual stamping: “Genuine Block Meerschaum”. Here are examples of Laxey pipes including our Thompson.” (Diving into the Provenance of a Thompson Genuine Block Meerschaum GT. Britain Brandy – The Pipe Steward)

Thank you Dal for doing a bang-up job on the research for the Thompson Genuine Block Meerschaum pipes.

The Restoration

As usual the pipe received a cleaned denim piece for protecting it and the workbench.

The threads cut into the meerschaum were far from smooth but they looked remarkably clean. I figured after a thorough cleaning I would use a light coating of petroleum jelly to ease the threading of the tenon.

Below you can see the finish of the stem. It almost had a sandblast-like fishing, not unattractive but I thought a gloss would look more elegant.

The reaming was done with only the Smokingpipes Low Country reamer and the General triangular scraper.

The tobacco chamber was sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel.

The stummel was scrubbed with Murphy Oil Soap and a nylon brush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and dried with a cotton hand towel. It was set in a pipe stand and allowed to dry for an hour after the scrub.

I did not want to round the edges of the stem nor did I was to handle the stummel until it had been given a fresh beeswax coating so I used a wood block with a hole drilled for sanding.

The stem was sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 320-1500 grits. Between sponges the stem was rubbed with mineral oil and wiped with a paper towel.

After an hour I started prepping the beeswax. I use a water bath on the stovetop to heat the beeswax. The hot water keeps the wax liquified for a longer period of time and I don’t have to worry about overheating the wax as it never gets above 212F or 100 c.

The stummel was heated using a heat gun. The metal tin in the photo below is used to catch wax that drips from the stummel as it is applied with a small paintbrush.

The tobacco chamber was plugged using a cork and the shank plugged with the stem. The hot beeswax was applied with several coats and the stummel rotated around the heat gun constantly. Upon finishing, I wiped the stummel with a clean dry paper towel. The stummel was then allowed to cool over about 15 minutes.

Once cooled, I wrapped the shank in masking tape to protect it from sanding. I continued with the series of sanding sponges from 2000-3500 grits with oiling and wiping as above.

The stem was then micro-meshed with pads 4000-12000. I rubbed the stem with Obsidian Oil between pads and wiped with a paper towel.

The stem was then buffed with a blue buffing compound.

After the remaining buffing compound had been wiped from the pipe and the tape removed the pipe received several coats of carnauba wax on the stem and a light buffing of the stummel.

The final step was another hand buff with the microfiber polishing cloth.

This lovely Thompson Block Meerschaum Billiard is a fine example of Tanganyika African meerschaum. The mineral does not have the same fine grain and brilliant white of the Turkish meerschaum but it does have a character all its own, almost like a rustic version of the Turkish mineral. The fumed rim gives way to a buttery cream color which will change with use and form a truly individual pipe. The stem started out with a more rough texture. This was sanded and finished to a high gloss black which stands out against the light meerschaum. The dimensions of the Thompson Block Meerschaum Billiard are:

Length: 6.00 in./ 152.40 mm.

Weight: 1.72 oz./ 48.76 g.

Bowl Height: 1.90 in./ 48.26 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.54 in./ 39.12 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.74 in./ 18.80 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.44 in./ 36.58 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Thompson Block Meerschaum Billiard.
A Peterson Croydon Square 42 Apple Restoration

September 25th, 2025
Photographed and written by

John M. Young

I remember reading my first Sherlock Holmes in middle school, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I loved the idea of a mystery, even though I knew about the great detective, the solution to the mystery was all new to me. I feel that way about this pipe, a Peterson Croydon Square 42. I had above average knowledge of Peterson pipes but had not heard of the Croydon Square line. Where would this mystery lead me?

The pipe was another single target eBay acquisition. I paid more than I really wanted to but it was a specimen that I had not seen before and I wanted to work on it. After a quick trip from LaGrange, Georgia to the wilds of southeast Nebraska, I had my prize. The photos below show the pipe prior to any work.

The Croydon Square looked like a well loved and used pipe. The restoration looked straight forward; cleaning, reaming, sanding of the stummel, deoxidation of the stem with sanding and polish. There did not appear to be any glaring issues with this old pipe, just use and time.

Background

Being unfamiliar with London, I’d not heard of Croydon nor of Croydon Square. I am familiar with Peterson pipes though, yet Croydon was an unfamiliar line of Petersons to me. I first wanted some information about the geography.

(London Borough of Croydon – Wikipedia)

Apparently Croydon dates back to:
- Croydon was first recorded in 809 CE as the site of a Saxon minster church. It later grew into a major medieval market town.
- Surrey Street Market has traded since 1276, making it one of the UK’s oldest continually operating markets.
- Croydon Palace and Addington Palace served as archbishops’ residences for over 500 years, notably under John Whitgift.
- Croydon Aerodrome pioneered international passenger flights and established the world’s first air traffic control tower.
- Modern Croydon blends cultural venues, a tram network and major office space, anchored by Fairfield Halls and St George’s House.
(Croydon’s History | Saxon Settlement to South London Hub)

With my curiosity settled on that account, I turned my gerbil-like attention to the pipe. I cannot give Kapp and Peterson the credit they are due. In the most comprehensive guide to the history of Peterson Mark Irwin and Gary Malmberg wrote a wonderful book The Peterson Pipe (Irwin, Mark and Malmberg, Gary. The Peterson Pipe; The Story of Kapp and Peterson. 2018, Briar Books Press, Canada. First edition, second printing.). According to Irwin and Malmberg, the legacy of Peterson as “the world’s oldest continuously operating briar pipe maker” (Irwin, p. 3). This is a treasure trove of information for those interested in Peterson pipes. It is currently “sold out” from The Peterson Pipe Book (Softcover) | Smokingpipes.com.

As complete a guide to Peterson pipes as this book is, it was lacking in much information regarding the Croydon pipe in hand. I was able to glean additional information from Mark Irwin’s Peterson Pipe Notes (PPN) (Peterson Pipe Notes – Peterson Pipe Notes: Celebrating Peterson Pipes). Within the blog entry, “136. Filling the Gap: The 1939 Rogers Import Peterson Catalog & Download” (136. Filling the Gap: The 1939 Rogers Import Peterson Catalog & Download – Peterson Pipe Notes), I read the following:

“I’m also happy to report that a few revisions of the book are now in order. That didn’t take long, did it? So get out your pencil, it’s time to annotate your copy: (1) The Croydon Square origin date is given as 1949 in the book, as we only had an RDTA Almanac an unhallmarked specimen to go by. But now—surprise!—it’s clear that the line was being made as early as ’39. (The similarity between the name of Croydon Square and Trafalgar Square also has me wondering if the latter didn’t replace the former at some point.) (2) We can also pencil in ’39 as the earliest documented date (so far) for the Captain Pete. (3) The ad copy in the catalog also suggests that, at this date, the line was made exclusively at the London factory. (4) And if that’s not enough, at the beginning of the “N” section in the Information Guide, you can write, “An N prefacing two-digit shape numbers of English-made pipes refers to a natural finish.”” (136. Filling the Gap: The 1939 Rogers Import Peterson Catalog & Download – Peterson Pipe Notes)

In the above quote from Mark Irwin, the “RDTA” refers to “Retail Tobacco Dealers of America. The forerunner of the current Premium Cigar Association with a few name changes in between.” (Mark Irwin, personal communication. September 22, 2025). Don’t worry, I had no idea what it meant either. I emailed Mark and got a quick reply. The PPN blog also had the following page from a 1939 Roger’s catalog:

(136. Filling the Gap: The 1939 Rogers Import Peterson Catalog & Download – Peterson Pipe Notes)

AHA, specific historical information about the Croydon Square pipe was at hand. This put the pipe’s provenance from at least 1939 to ? and also the shape 42. Although this information led to more questions. There is no mention or illustration of fishtail stems, only P-lips. The pipe in hand had been smoked quite a bit leading me to the thought that the stem of this pipe may be a replacement.

In The Peterson Pipe, where the London production of pipes is discussed at length, was another interesting piece of information. Here, Irwin and Malmberg say, “Apparently, the London factory did not order a MADE IN ENGLAND die until after the war. Any Peterson stamped with an English COM must be no older than the later 1940s” (Irwin, p.150). If it is assumed that this pipe was not stamped due to there not being a stamp available then it would date from 1939-late 1940s. If it was merely not stamped with a COM then it is assumed to be made during the years of pipe production at the London factory 1936-1962. I prefer to think that it is due to the former. This is actually a selfish desire to have the dates of production to be a more definitive late 1930s-late 1940s. I know, too much conjecture…

The Restoration

The restoration began with a clean denim piece protecting both the work surface and the pipe.

I began with the stem. This was cleaned with bristle pipe cleaners and 99% ethyl alcohol.

The stem was then submerged in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover (deox). It bathed for 18 hours.

In the meantime, I worked on the stummel. The ream team was gathered.

The PipNet #1 and #2 blades were both put to use. The General triangular scarper was also used to do some cleanup of the tobacco chamber and the rim.

Below is a photo of the tobacco chamber after the reaming.

The chamber was then sanded with 320 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel. No damage to the chamber was observed.

The rim however was encased in a layer of lava.

The lava was softened with saliva and scraped with the blade of a sharp pocket knife.

Next came the shank airway cleaning. Again the 99% ethyl alcohol and bristle pipe cleaners were used. There was also a good deal of scraping with a dental scraper and use of a nylon shank brush.

I was not completely happy with my efforts to rid the airway of the residue of tar and general yuck. I thought an alcohol and cotton treatment would do the airway some good. The tobacco chamber and the airway were stuffed with cotton.

99% ethyl alcohol was applied via a disposable pipette to the cotton until it was saturated. This took about 10 ml of alcohol.

The alcohol was allowed to evaporate overnight. This allowed the alcohol to dissolve the tars and transfer them to the cotton as the alcohol evaporated. The next day the cotton was stained, telling me the process worked.

The cotton was removed and the airway was cleaned again. The below photo shows the 2nd cleaning and the tars that were removed after the overnight cotton alcohol treatment.

The stummel was then taken to the sink for a scrubbing with a nylon brush and undiluted Murphy Oil Soap. The soap was rinsed with warm water and the stummel dried with a cotton hand towel.

Returning to the workbench, the stummel was wiped with a make-up pad dipped in ethyl alcohol.

The stem was removed from deox and rubbed with a coarse shop rag. This removed a good deal of the oxidized rubber from the stem.

The stem was then worked with Soft Scrub cleanser on make-up pads to remove more of the oxidation.

I then oiled the stem with a liberal coating of mineral oil and let the stem sit for several hours. Oh yeah, I also ran a pipe cleaner through the stem and oiled the interior as well.

The rim looked far better but still rather rough. I thought that a light topping was in order.

The topping was done with 320 sandpaper laid on a flat counter top followed by a piece of 400 sandpaper. This revealed two additional areas of concern. A deeper dent or ding in the inner rim (about 5:00) and a hairline crack (at about 7:00).

I used a wood sphere wrapped in sandpaper to reestablish the inner rim bevel and smooth the rim.

I deemed the crack to be superficial and not structurally important. It was given a dab of Thin cyanoacrylate (CAl super glue) to seal it and was topped a second time with the 400 sandpaper. The ding was filled by packing it with briar dust and then applying a small drop of CA. This was repeated a second time. The wooden sphere and sandpaper was used to smooth the fill and the rim was topped again with the 400 sandpaper.

The stamps were taped off with masking tape to protect them from sanding.

I prefer asymmetrical pieces of tape because they leave a less noticeable mark on the briar where sanding was not done.

The first two sanding sponges used were the 320 and 400 grit. Sanding with these two showed me where several dents and pits were. All of these blemishes were small so they were filled by placing a tiny drop of Thin CA on the spot and sanding it with a very dirty sanding sponge. By dirty, I mean a sponge that has a large amount of briar dust on it. Even with the extra briar dust sometimes the CA gets onto the sanding sponge. This can be seen below as the dark spots on the sponges.

The small fills were sanded with 324 and 400grit sponges.

Below are some photos of the fills after they’d been filled.

The pipe was then sanded with the full series of sanding sponges from 320 -3500 grit. Between each sponge the stummel was wiped with a make-up pad wetted with alcohol. The stem was rubbed with mineral oil and wiped with a dry paper towel.

The pipe was then worked with micro-mesh pads 4000-12000. The wiping of the stem and stummel was done as with the sanding sponges except the stem was rubbed with Obsidian Oil.

I took the pipe to the buffer and buffed it with blue buffing compound.

After wiping any remaining buffing compound from the pipe it was given a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm and allowed to sit for an hour. Why an hour? Because I got side-tracked with another project.

The excess balm was wiped away using an inside out athletic sock.

The pipe was then taken to the buffer for several coats of carnauba wax.

The final step was another hand buff with the microfiber polishing cloth then off to the final photo shoot.

This beautiful Peterson’s Croydon Square 42 is a great example of Peterson’s English workmanship. The stain of the original pipe was maintained and gives the pipe a slight contrast-dye look. It was finished with careful sanding and just carnauba wax. The stem sanded and polished to a gorgeous glossy luster. Though lacking any stunning briar grain there is some nice flame grain on the rear left. The dimensions of the Peterson’s Croydon Square 42 are:

Length: 5.67 in./ 144.02 mm.

Weight: 0.95 oz./ 26.93 g.

Bowl Height: 1.43 in./ 36.32 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.25 in./ 31.75 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.71 in./ 18.03 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.37 in./ 34.80 mm.

I do hope that you have found something here useful to your own pipe care, maintenance or restorations. If you like this sort of thing, please click the like and subscribe buttons. Thank you for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Loading…

Type your email…

Below are some photos of the finished Peterson Croydon Square 42.

Pipe Dreams