Photographed and written by
John M. Young
“That is a cool shape” is what I said to myself when I came across this darling Danish damsel languishing on eBay. The two photos in the listing were not great, which may have been why there had been little interest in the pipe. I’ll include one below.
I made an offer to the seller and it was accepted. Several days later the Royal Guard made the trip from Shenandoah, Virginia to the wilds of southeast Nebraska. The stamping on the pipe read “Royal Guard” (in a fancy script) over MADE IN DENMARK on the left shank and 522 on the right shank. The stem stamping was clear and had an RG overlapping. Below are some photos of the pipe prior to any work done.
The Royal Guard looked like it was in very good shape. The only issues were the lava flows on the rim and the oxidation of the stem. This looked to be a very relaxing restoration. I was excited to continue the testing of the new products too: Before and After Hard Rubber Balm and Briarville’s Stem oxidation Remover.
Background
Stanwell was hardly an unknown brand to me but I had not spent a lot of time working on Stanwell pipes. The last one I had worked on and blogged about was back in June of 2024. Here is that link if you’d care to read it. The funny part was that the restored Stanwell from that post was very similar in shape to this pipe. Below are before photos of both pipes. Apparently my taste in pipe shapes has not changed much in a year.
The first place I researched Royal Guard was pipephil.eu. Here I found a match for the stamping s and the RG stem logo. The Royal Guard was said to be a “Stanwell seconds”.
(Roy-Rz — Pipes: Logos & Markings)
The next leg in the search was to pipedia.org under “Stanwell”. “During WWII, Danish pipe smokers could no longer buy the English made briar pipes they preferred to smoke. In 1942, because of the unavailability of English pipes and raw briar, Poul Nielsen began making pipes from beech wood for Danish customers. At the time, Poul was managing a company called Kyringe, which made various wood products. At the end of the war, briar became available again, so Nielsen began importing his own briar and started making briar pipes to compete with the English manufacturers. It must be remembered that in 1948, England was the single great center for pipe making. Therefore, Nielsen changed the name of his pipes to “Stanwell”, which sounded much more like a proper English name than “Nielsen”. He also created the horse drawn carriage logo for its English connotations. He later changed his own last name from Nielsen to Stanwell, a testament to his devotion to the pipes he made. Stanwell’s relationships with Danish pipe makers goes back to Sixten Ivarsson, who is considered the originator of modern Danish pipe making. Ivarsson was commissioned to design Stanwell shapes. In 1969, the factory was moved a town called Borup, just outside of Copenhagen to be closer to Ivarsson.” (Stanwell – Pipedia)
According to the entry the main part of the information was from a smokingpipes.com article on Stanwell. So, I went to the original document: (Stanwell Shapes and Origins | Smokingpipes.com). I will include this information in its entirety below:
“Alongside classic English and French pipemakers, Stanwell holds a significant place in pipe history. Due to the briar shortages of WWII, and the chaos that overwhelmed both France and Britain — as well as Italy from where a large quantity of briar was sourced — Danish pipe smokers couldn’t obtain pipes from England, despite preferring such pieces. To fill this void of quality smoking instruments in Denmark, Poul Nielsen began making pipes out of beechwood under the name Kyringe in 1942.
When the war ended and briar resumed availability, Nielsen transitioned into making briar pipes, joining the market now resurrected with popular English brands. These marques dominated the preferences of pipe smokers, England considered the Mecca of pipemaking, so in 1948, Poul changed his brand name to Stanwell — a more English-sounding name to cater to popular pipe smoking inclinations. He even changed his own surname to Stanwell, cementing his commitment to his pipe making venture and his devotion to crafting quality pipes.
Stanwell became the first main exporter of Danish pipes, introducing the world to new pipe designs and adding diversity. Unlike most other brands, though, Stanwell fostered relationships with individual Danish artisans — most notably Sixten Ivarsson. Ivarsson revolutionized the pipe making process in the 1960s with his paradigm-shifting “shape first, drill second” approach, allowing carvers greater freedom and creativity when crafting new designs.
Recognizing this potential for collaboration, Stanwell commissioned Sixten to design a number of shapes for the Danish marque. This relationship, then, extended to other artisans in Denmark: Jess Chonowitsch, Anne Julie, Tom Eltang, and the S. Bang workshop, which at the time consisted of Svend Bang, Per Hansen, and Ulf Noltensmeier.
Stanwell’s extensive portfolio, then, features a number of artisan-designed shapes, offering the individuality and aesthetic appeal of artisan pipes but with the greater production ability of a state-of-the-art factory. Such a combination is rarely seen from large-scale pipe makers, setting Stanwell apart and lending it a distinguished place among the globe-spanning breadth of pipe making.
Many of these artisan-designed shapes can be found in our Danish Estates category, and below are listed some of the most popular and iconic pieces, divided by their progenitors:
Sixten Ivarsson
11 – Bent Pot
17 – Billiard
21 – Potato Sack
30 – Acorn
35 – Peewit
62/63/64 – Bent Dublins
70 – Volcano
86 – Bent Pot
Anne Julie
11 – Bent Bulldog
35 – Bent Egg Freehand
Tom Eltang
126 – Horn (plateau rim, 125 smooth rim)
131 – Apple
190 – Billiard
191 – Bent Rhodesian
199 – Billiard
Sixtus 208 – Billiard
Sixtus 209 – Apple
Sixtus 210 – Pot
Sixtus 211 – Bent Dublin
Sixtus 212 – Bent Billiard
Sixtus 213 – Horn/Zulu
227 – Bent Dublin
228 – Dublin
232 – Bent Billiard (sits)
Featherweight 243 – Bent Dublin/Acorn
Featherweight 245 – Poker
Jess Chonowitsch
140 – Bent Dublin
141 – Billiard/Brandy
142 – Bent Dublin
145 – Horn
146 – Horn/Dublin
148 – Canadian
162 – Calabash
217 – Horn
S. Bang
178 – Billiard
179 – Bent Apple” (Stanwell Shapes and Origins | Smokingpipes.com) I did take some creative license to format the original images to better fit the page but the information was not changed in any way.
In looking at the images from various Stanwell carvers I could not find a match for the Royal Guard pipe. The number 522 also could not be found on any Stanwell literature. The closest thing I could find was the following:
(Stanwell Shape Numbers and Designers – Pipedia)
If you assume that the 5 of the 522 is there to indicate the Royal Guard then the 22 would be the shape number. There is no reference to a shape 52 in any Stanwell catalogs so, this seems like a reasonable assertion. The shape number 22, is mentioned in the above quote/screenshot in two versions. The “Straight billiard with an oval shank and tapered stem” obviously does not pertain to this pipe but the “Bent apple-horn hybrid with a half-saddle stem” could be used to describe this pipe.
The Restoration
Even just sitting on a denim piece at the workbench I think this is a great shape.
As I said before, I was excited to try out the new Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover. So much so, that I completely forgot to clean the stem airway before inserting a pipe cleaner to act as a handle and placing it in the solution.
I left the stem in the solution for 12 hours.
Reaming the tobacco chamber was the next task. The ream team was gathered, below.
The PipNet with the #3 blade did the heavy lifting here with the General triangular scraper finishing up the job.
The chamber was sanded with 220 sandpaper to bare briar. No heat damage was observed in the chamber. The rim certainly needed a good cleaning to remove the lava, though.
The lava was moistened with saliva and allowed to sit for a couple of minutes before being scraped with a sharp pocket knife.
The scraping revealed no serious charring of the rim’s briar.
Next, the stummel was taken to the sink for a scrubbing 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 the stummel was wiped with 95% ethyl alcohol on a make-up pad. This removed some color from the stummel.
There was some shine remaining on the stummel so I repeated the wiping with acetone on make-up pads.
This pipe had been used for smoking cherry blends and there was a definite cherry ghost haunting the briar. I opted to do a cotton alcohol treatment to exorcize the ghost while I waited to see the results of the Briarville solution.
I added alcohol to the cotton which was stuffed into the tobacco chamber and airway with a disposable pipette.
Alcohol was added until both ends were saturated.
The next day revealed the scene below. The bowl was quite unstained while the shank was heavily discolored.
The cotton was removed.
Well, it isn’t bright and pretty yellow anymore. The Briarville solution was dramatically darker than the previous day.
The stem was moved to a coarse shop rag.
A vigorous rubbing with the rag removed some of the softened oxidation from the stem and left it on the rag.
The stamping on the stem looked good. There is always a fear of the oxidation remover removing the logo though, this stamp was nice and deep and hard not been buffed or worn into oblivion like some I’ve seen.
Overall I was quite impressed with the Briarville Pipe Stem Oxidation Remover. It seemed to have worked well and was less messy than the Before and After Extra Strength Deoxidizer that I have been using for many years.
I applied a drizzle of Soft Scrub cleanser to several make-up pads and scrubbed the stem with these. There was a lot of oxidized vulcanite removed in the process.
The last step in the oxidation was a coating of Before and After Hard Rubber Balm. This is another product sent to me by Mark Hoover, creator of the Before and After Products. I really like this blam for maintaining vulcanite stems after they have been restored. I think the more viscous balm is a better preservative than the Obsidian Oil.
With the residues within the shank softened by the alcohol-cotton treatment I started cleaning out the shank with alcohol dipped cotton swabs and a dental scraper.
The mortise had been drilled with a Forstner or other flat bottomed bit making a very regular mortise. This also created a great place for tars and residues to accumulate.
With the airway cleaned I was ready to start sanding the stem. To protect the shank and stem log0, masking tape was used to cover them. I wanted the stem and stummel together during the sanding to avoid round their edges creating an unsightly gap.
I tried flame painting the tooth dents out the button of the stem. This can sometimes reduce the dents.
The one thing that always reduces dents is filing the area. It also reestablishes a nice button.
The filing was done on both the bottom and top of the stem.
The stem was then sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 320-3500 grit. Between each sponge I rubbed the stem with mineral oil and wiped it off with a paper towel.
The smooth part of the stummel was sanded with the same series of sanding sponges. Here I wiped the stummel with a make-up pad moistened with alcohol between sponges.
The original logo appeared to have been painted with a white paint. I thought that a silver would look more “Royal”, befitting the name Royal Guard.
I applied silver leaf Rub’nBuff with a fly tying bodkin, working it into the logo stampings.
The Rub’nBuff was buffed by rubbing it on the denim work surface. This left a little bit of silver remaining on the area around the logo. I figured that this would be removed by the micro-mesh pads.
The stem and smother area of the stummel were micro-meshed with pads 400-12000. The stummel was wiped with an alcohol dampened make-up pad between micro-mesh pads while the stem was rubbed with Obsidian Oil between pads.
The stem was then polished with Before and After Fine followed by Extra Fine Polished. Both were applied by my finger and hand buffed with a soft cotton cloth.
The pipe was then taken to the buffer for several coats of carnauba wax. Since the sandblast was not very deep or pronounced I thought that it would be safe to use carnauba wax if applied carefully and worked with the blast direction.
The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth further deepening the shine.
I think this Royal Guard 522 turned out very well. This rim and stem were the two areas I was worried about, both turned out exceptionally well. The high gloss black vulcanite really accentuates and contrasts the sandblast of the stummel. The smooth portions of the stummel and shan are also a nice contrast in textures and amplify the sweeping curves of this shape. There was a lingering cherry taste when Drawing air through the pipe. Fortunately for me I planned on keeping this pipe and adding it to my personal collection and I don’t mind the ever so slight cherry. Heck, I might just use it for those blends. The dimensions of the Royal Guard 522 are:
Length: 5.69 in./ 144.53 mm.
Weight: 1.82 oz./ 51.60 g.
Bowl Height: 1.81 in./ 45.97 mm.
Chamber Depth: 1.55 in./ 39.37 mm.
Chamber Diameter: 0.80 in./ 20.32 mm.
Outside Diameter: 1.66 in./ 42.16 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.
Below are some photos of the finished Royal Guard 522.
NebraskaPeteGeek 