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Tag: “ “ Imported Briar Billiard

LHS Sterncrest 14K 39 Billiard Restoration

April 29th, 2025

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

If Vincent van Gogh were to have been a pipe carver this pipe may have been carved to compliment his Starry Night painting. The carved swirls remind me of van Gogh’s famous stars. Maybe that is what struck me about this piece or maybe it was the 14 karat solid gold band. With gold breaking $3500 per ounce, I suppose more folks are going to be hunting for the solid gold work on all kinds of old pieces. This pipe was picked up from an antique dealer in Beverly, Massachusetts last month and got itself bumped up in the queue due it’s amazing carving. Below are some photos of the pipe as it appeared upon arrival before work started.

Pretty cool, right? The bone tenon extension was a real bonus as those typically indicate a higher level of quality and workmanship. The gold band was tarnished. This was weird because gold doesn’t tarnish, perhaps the copper and silver which were added to the gold all settled on the surface (metallurgical humor, there). The pipe was in very good condition and did not look like it would need much more than a thorough cleaning and a bit of stem work, tooth dent removal and better fitting of the tenon with the mortise. Speaking of the stem, it did not appear to be vulcanite but rather a hard plastic. Another weirdism.

Background

I began the research for LHS with pipephil.eu. There I found the following short piece on the company along with many examples of stampings matching the stamping from this pipe.:

LHS — Pipes : Logos & Markings

The next stop on the research train was at pipedia.org. There I found greater detail regarding the company and it’s founders, brothers Ludwig and Hugo Stern.

“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.

Notes from Geyer’s Stationer

Thoroughly organized in all departments, and housed in a well-lighted and ventilated modern office and manufacturing building, the firm of L&H Stern Inc. is located near the first arch of the Manhattan bridge, near the river and convenient to the Brooklyn bridge, which makes it accessible from all the hotels in the metropolis for visiting buyers. The structure is six stories with a seventeen-foot basement, with light on three sides through prismatic glass windows, the first floor being seven feet above the sidewalk. Light enters the upper floors from all four sides.

L&H Stern is known to every important wholesaler and jobber in the country. LHS manufactures a complete line of briar pipes. Ginmetto wood pipes are also made, as well as Redmanol goods, the man-made amber. The first substitute for amber. Everything, even down to the sterling silver and other metal trimmings are made under one roof.” (LHS – Pipedia).

The pipephil.eu site did have a great set of photographs of the LHS Brooklyn factory and they can be seen below.

(Document: L&H Stern factory — Pipes : Logos & Markings –)

(Document: L&H Stern factory — Pipes : Logos & Markings –)

(Document: L&H Stern factory — Pipes : Logos & Markings –)

(Document: L&H Stern factory — Pipes : Logos & Markings –)

I still find it hard to imagine that New York City was a manufacturing hub. In my mind NYC is a place of offices and apartments housing people all like Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elain Benes, Cramer and Newman. As you may have guessed, I have never been to NYC.

This Sterncrest 14k. according to the quality guide from pipephil.eu, was LHS’s second highest quality line.

(Document: LHS Grading — Pipes : Logos & Markings –). What would today’s equivalent of $7.50 in 1944 money? According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics,

(CPI Inflation Calculator). A $138 pipe is not considered to be a “highend” pipe by today’s standards but more in line with a standard Savinelli or Peterson factory made base pipe. The threaded bone tenon and sold gold band lead me to think that the Consumer Price Index may be missing exact relevance or that quality standards of today are much different than that of 1944. If you are curious, I used http://coinapps.com/gold/gram/calculator/ to value the 0.4 g 14K gold band. The below is a screen shot using the gold value as of 4/25/2025:

The Restoration

The Starry Night Sterncrest, the pipe’s new nickname (do you like it?) made it to the workbench and a cleaned denim piece.

I disassembled the pipe. I was slightly surprised with the ease that the bone tenon unscrewed from the stem. Frequently these old bone tenon extensions become fused to their stems and require their destruction to remove.

The bone goes from white to nearly black with smoking. This one was a uniform dark brown.

The shank cleaning was done with 95% ethyl alcohol, cotton swabs, pipe cleaners and a dental scraper.

The reaming tools were gathered.

The PipNet reamer and the #1 and #2 blades did most of the work removing the cake from the tobacco chamber.

The chamber looked good and was then sanded with 220 sandpaper wrapped around a wood dowel.

After sanding to bare briar the chamber was inspected for any damage due to heat or charring. None was observed.

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

Returning to the workbench the grooves in the carvings still looked rough as if partly filled with dirt and grime.

The rim also looked like the carvings retained some lava, smoking residue.

The rim was scrubbed with a brass rush dipped in ethyl alcohol and wiped with a make-up pad.

I wiped the stummel with a make-up pad dipped in 95% ethyl alcohol. The pad picked up quite a bit of old stain.

Since the brass brush worked well with the rim, I decided to try scrubbing the carvings with it and ethyl alcohol. The color is not off in the photo below. My fingers were stained with the stain from the stummel. What I had thought was dirt and grime in the grooves was actually accumulated stain.

The carvings looked better after being scrubbed, wiped and allowed dry.

I turned my attention to cleaning the airway of the stem. Again I used ethyl alcohol and bristle pipe cleaners. The stem was surprisingly clean.

The same was done with the bone tenon extension.

I addressed the overly tight fit of the tenon to the mortise by sanding the tenon with a 400 grit sanding sponge.

Once sanded I applied a light coat of petroleum jelly to the tenon and retried the fit.

The fit was great with the appropriate tightness.

I wanted to remove the tarnish from the 14k solid gold band. It was thin and to reduce the risk of bending it I wanted to polish the band on the shank. I wrapped the shank in masking tape to protect the briar from discoloration due to the polishing cloth chemicals.

Cape Cod Metal Polishing Cloths were used to remove the tarnish from the band. I have to comment that the smell of this metal polish is a high point of using it. It has a wonderful aroma.

The band after polishing was returned to a brilliant gold color.

The shank, band included, was rewrapped with masking tape again for its protection from sanding.

Before sanding, I wanted to remove the tooth chatter from the stem. I was leery of using a lighter to “paint” the stem as I was unfamiliar with this type of stem material and did not know how it would react to flame. I opted to just file the chatter with a small flat file.

The area was sanded with 320 and 400 grit sanding sponges.

The stem was then sanded with a series of sanding sponges from 320-350. Between each sponge the stem was rubbed with Obsidian Oil and wiped with a paper towel. After the sanding the stem was taken to the buffer and polished with rouge compound with the rouge wheel then white compound with the white compound wheel.

I removed the masking tape and wiped the shank with a make-up pad dipped in alcohol to remove any traces of adhesive from the tape. The stummel was then given a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm worked into the carvings with a soft fiber tooth brush and allowed to sit for an hour.

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

I applied Before and After Hard Rubber Balm to the bone tenon extension. I am sure that Mark Hoover didn’t intend for his balm to be used on bone but the product works amazingly well at preserving vulcanite stems and I figured that it would work equally as well on bone. I then reassembled the stem.

The stem and stamping surface were given several coats of carnauba wax at the buffer. Apply carnauba to the carving as they were too deep and would likely accumulate a thick wax coating which would then accumulate dirt.

The stummel was waxed with Renaissance Micro-Crystalline Wax with a baby tooth brush and buffed with a clean flannel buffing wheel. The edge of the wheel was used to work excess wax from the deeper carving grooves while still receiving a protective coating. I have to say that I also love the smell of this wax.

The final step was a hand buffing with a microfiber polishing cloth further deepening the shine.

Personally, I think this LHS Sterncrest 14K 39 billiard, AKA: Starry Night Sterncrest, restored very nicely. The swirling carvings are eye-catching and something not seen on modern production pipes. The bone tenon extension is also a link to simpler days. The stem polished up beautifully and both is set apart from the carvings and is accentuated by the gold band. The light weight of this pipe should make it a fine clencher and the sarving are both pleasant to the eyes and provide a great feel in the hand. The dimensions of the LHS Sterncrest 14K 39 billiard are:

Length: 5.68 in./ 144.27 mm.

Weight: 0.95 oz./ 26.93 g.

Bowl Height: 1.54 in./ 39.12 mm.

Chamber Depth: 1.34 in./ 34.04 mm.

Chamber Diameter: 0.76 in./ 17.78 mm.

Outside Diameter: 1.32 in./ 30.48 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.

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Below are some photos of the finished LHS Sterncrest 14K 39 billiard.
A Dulwich Supreme Billiard Restoration

February 12th, 2024

Photographed and written by

John M. Young

The Dunwich Horror is one of H. P. Lovecraft’s best known works from 1928. The name of this pipe has little to nothing in common with that story other than sharing most of the letters in Dunwich. The Dulwich Supreme was far from an eldritch abomination of cosmic proportion and it most likely is more recent than 1928. Rather it appears to be a fine piece of briar with an intact meerschaum bowl and good quality vulcanite for a stem.

This pipe was part of an estate lot that contained the 3 Senlar pipes from earlier restorations (Senlar Canadian, A Second Senlar Canadian and Senlar Billiard). This pipe caught my eye with its light colored briar and forward

canted bowl, both features I find attractive. And, of course, the Lovecraft-esque name. I had restored several meerschaum lined pipes though not a favorite. I had kept a couple of them for use on windy days when I was working on an outdoor project. I considered the small bowl size as a detractor from frequent use. Although the cleaning with soap and water was always a feature that I liked.

Here is what I was looking at.

I failed to photograph the third stamp, along the bottom of the shank. They read, DULWICH over SUPREME (left), MADE IN over ENGLAND (right) and FINEST BRIAR over EXTRA and a shape number 127 (bottom). I could find very little information on Dulwich pipes. The information from pipedia.org is a single line, “|”'[[Dulwich]]”’||brand that often has Meerschaum lined bowls” (Search results for “Dulwich” – Pipedia). Pipehil.eu had nothing. I turned to Steve Laug’s rebornpipes blog and his extensive list of pipes that he had restored and found that he had restored 3 Dulwich pipes on two separate blog posts: Refurbishing a Dulwich Quaint Oom Paul 64 and A Rare Find – A Pair of Fieldcraft Dulwich Quaints. In both of Steve’s posts he too could find little information on the Dulwich brand. Also of note is that none of the three Dulwhich pipes that Steve restored had the meerschaum liner. With little information to go on and no idea of a date for this all I can do is make a guess – made in England in the 1970s.

After the initial photos were taken the Dulwich received a clean piece of denim at the workbench. I did not want to use the PipNet for reaming for fear of the torque that my massive forearms would deliver to the fragile meerschaum liner. Okay, that was an exaggeration although, I am pretty sure that my forearms do have some mass. In my previous restorations of meerschaum lined pipes I have found that the meerschaum is usually chipped, has breaks and/or missing pieces. This Dulwich was dirty but intact. I opted to only use scraping tools and sandpaper to ream the tobacco chamber.

The scraping went well and was followed by sanding with 320 sandpaper. The interior of the tobacco chamber felt smooth yet remained discolored. I feared being too aggressive with it and stopped sanding when the walls were smooth and cake free.

I cleaned the rim by gently scrubbing with Castille soap and a Scotch-brite type dish cleaning sponge. The lava on the rim came free with minimal scrubbing. The exterior of the Dunwich was scrubbed using Murphy’s Oil Soap undiluted and a medium bristle toothbrush. The soap was rinsed with warm water and dried with a cotton dish towel. After the scrubbing I wiped the surface of the briar with a make-up pad moistened with 95% ethyl alcohol. The pad showed some color as it removed some of the remaining finish from the stummel. I do not think that this briar was stained so the pad removed a bit of shellac or wax.

Next, I removed the stinger from the stem and placed it in a medicine cup with 99% isopropyl alcohol to soften the lacquer-like tar. As the stinger soaked I started sanding the stummel. There were numerous scratches, dents and dings on the surface of the stummel. I thought that most of these were minor and would sand out easily. I began with the 400 sanding sponge followed by a wipe from an alcohol wetted make-up pad. I was examining the stummel for pits that might need filling. I only found one. This was indeed “supreme” briar. The one small pit was treated by placing a small drop of thin

cyanoacrylate (CA, super glue) in the pit and sanding over it with the 400 sanding sponge. The briar dust from the sponge combined with the CA in the pit to make a barely noticeable fill. I continued sanding the stummel with the sequence of 1000-3500 sanding sponges. I did not tape over the stampings, rather was very careful to avoid them and the edge of the mortise.

With the stummel sanded I turned my attention to the stem. The tooth chatter looked far worse than it actually was. None of the bite marks were deep enough to require filling with black CA. the surface was scratched and there was oxidation on the surface. I sanded the stem with the 400 and 600 grit sanding sponges. I then placed the stem into a bath of Oxy-Clean and let it soak for an hour. After the soak I ran several pipe cleaners through the stem to clean it out. I then used Soft Scrub on a make-up pad to scrub the stem. The pad quickly became discolored with the oxidized vulcanite that the stem was shedding. The cleaning left the stem a nice black with no signs of brown. It was then coated with mineral oil and allowed to sit for another 30 minutes.

I used a piece of alcohol wetted 0000 steel wool to remove the tar from the stinger and inserted it back into the stem. I then taped the shank with painters tape and reinserted the stem into the stummel and sanded the stem with the 1000-3500 sanding sponges. Between each sponge I applied a drop of mineral oil with my fingertips and wiped with a paper towel.

The whole pipe was micro-meshed intact. I worked with the 4000-12000 micro-mesh pads in series. Between each pad the stummel received a wipe with an alcohol dampened make-up pad while the stem received a drop of Obsidian Oil rubbed in by finger and wiped with a paper towel. After the micro-meshing the stem was further polished with Before and After Fine Polish followed by the Extra Fine Polish.

After the stem was polished the stummel was given a coating of Before and After Restoration Balm. I planned to allow it to sit for 30 minutes then wipe it off. When I checked on it after 15 minutes the briar had absorbed much of the balm and appeared dry in places. I then applied a second coating of the Restoration Balm and allowed it to sit an additional 30 minutes.

After the final 30 minutes, I wiped the remaining Restoration Balm from the stummel with the inside of an athletic sock.

All that remained was to apply a few coats of carnauba wax to the pipe with the buffer.

This was by far the best looking meerschaum lined pipe that I had ever worked on. It quite literally puts the others that I have to shame. The quality of the briar is very fine and after being waxed the briar looked fantastic. The vulcanite stem cleaned-up well and has a brilliant glossy black which accentuates the briar even more. This Dulwich is a fine looking pipe and I am sure it will be a great smoking pipe as well. I really like the forward cant of the bowl and how the white of the meerschaum peeks out at an observer from the front. This pipe is larger than any of my other meerschaum lined pipes which allows it to have a larger bowl capacity. I am very pleased by how this pipe turned out. I do hope that you have found something here useful. If you like this sort of thing please click the like and subscribe buttons. I thank for reading the ramblings of an old pipe lover.

Below are some photos of the finished Dulwich Supreme Billiard.