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The Standing Record
306 things this encyclopedia cannot yet settle. Each one is a date we will not guess at: two good sources disagree, or a single recollection stands unwitnessed, or the document that would prove it has never surfaced.
We publish them because a reference that hides its gaps is not a reference. An honest ‘circa’ backed by evidence is worth more than a confident year pulled from thin air — and a gap stated plainly is an invitation to the collector who can close it.
Jobey
How can a Jobey from 1941 to 1969 be told apart from a later one? We know no stamp sign yet.
When did each line, like Shellmoor or Asti, start and end?
Who made the Jobey pipes sold by F and K Cigar from 2002, and how are they stamped?
Did Jobey ever really begin in England? No proof has been found.
Is there an old Jobey shape chart for the numbers?
Parker
How can a Parker made after 1957 be dated? Pipedia asks for help here too.
Were more briar Parkers made in the war, after the one pipe with code 19?
When did the patent stamp really stop: 1954 or 1957?
Is there an old Parker shape chart that matches numbers to shapes?
Does the F after a shape number always mean fantail?
Custombilt
Which years go with each of Unger's stamp styles, numbers 1 to 5?
When did the Doodler stop being made?
What do the geometric punch marks mean?
Is Burly Briar a Custombilt sub-brand?
How are the French and Mexican Custombilts of 1987 to 1998 stamped?
Is there an old shape chart that matches numbers to shape names?
Lorenzo
When did the Spitfire and Lloyd's names start and stop?
What did Comoy's of London stamp on Lorenzo pipes made under licence after 1983?
How is an Albanian-made Lorenzo stamped, if it is marked at all?
When did each modern line start, such as New Era, Moscato or Spumante?
Is there an old Lorenzo shape chart that matches numbers to shape names?
How do we tell a Tagliabue-era pipe made before 1969?
Jeantet
When did each line start, such as Sir Duke, Maya or Jumbos?
Which stamp or detail shows a Chacom-made Jeantet, made after the merger?
Did Jeantet join the Cuty Fort group in 1988 or in 1992?
Did the Montréal-la-Cluse workshop mark its cheaper pipes in a different way?
When did the curly J stamp give way to the arched Jeantet stamp?
Can the 1980 Jeantet catalogue shown on Pipedia be found and read in full?
Karl Erik
Do I M and I B pipes share the II S window?
In which exact year did the number grades change to letter grades?
Which stamp or detail shows a Planta-made Karl Erik?
Can a firm start year be found for the II S stamps, in place of our approximate 1968?
When were Champ of Denmark, Garrick, Knute and the other names made?
Is there a dated Karl Erik catalogue that would narrow the years?
Bari
When did Classic Diamond, Wiking and the other series start?
Did the stamp change in the von Eicken years, 1978 to 1993?
Do pipes made after 1993 name Vejen on the stamp?
Were Excellent and Don really Bari seconds?
Is there a dated Bari catalogue that would narrow the series years?
Zenith
When did the Zenith name begin: around 1900, or at the end of World War I?
When did the Black Magic and Gouda Classic series start?
Who made the briar pipes sold as Zenith Radica Italiana, and when?
Is there a dated Zenith catalogue that would narrow the series years?
Loewe
When exactly did the 9 numbers replace the shape names? A dated catalogue from the 1960s would settle it.
Were the Extra Grain, Straight Grain and Special Grain grades made before 1955?
When did Centurion, Original and Old English stop being stamped?
When were the Beefeater seconds made?
Which stamp tells a London-made Loewe of the early 1980s from a French-made one?
Ropp
When did the Eug. Ropp signature start, and when did it stop?
When did the J. Ropp, Maitre Pipier signature start?
Which stamp tells a new Ropp, made by Chacom since 1994, from an old one?
When did each line name begin, such as Virgin De Luxe or Hors Classe? The early Ropp catalogue may tell us.
In which year did Ropp really begin to make briar pipes?
Kirsten
When exactly did PATS & PATS PENDING give way to the later stamps?
When did Kirsten begin to stamp its own name on the bottom of its bowls?
When did the bowl adapter first appear in the transition years?
When exactly did Generation 3 begin, and how much does it overlap Generation 2?
Does Kirsten still make pipes in Seattle today?
Rossi
In which year did Savinelli begin to sell Rossi by Savinelli?
When exactly did the FRB and MFRB oval stamps begin?
When exactly did the cursive Rossi stamp give way to the ROSSI oval?
Were the words Extra, Super, Standard and Grana stamped on the pipe? In which years?
Did the Montechristo name for pipes with small faults have its own stamp, and when?
Castello
In which year did the faux diamond logo begin?
When exactly did the large K grade begin?
Did Kino take over in the early 1980s, or in 1984 and 1985?
When did the pi symbol replace the 3 in front of the shape number?
In which years was the short-lived Antiquari line sold?
When did pipes for the US go back to the white bar?
Oldenkott
Who made the Original Oldenkott pipes advertised in Berlin in 1926?
Did the pipe factory close in 1982 or in 1992?
When was each line, such as Rubin, Supra or Nicofry, first made and last made?
When did Oldenkott first use the red and white dot?
When were the Turbo pipes first made?
Which shape numbers did the Egra line use?
Are the revival pipes from 2012 still made today?
Brebbia
Was the M.P.B. brand born in 1953, or with the buyout of 22 June 1956?
How can you tell the first gnome of 1953 to 1956 from the later gnome?
When was each line, such as Pura, Lido or Golden Gnome, first made and last made?
What does each star beside the Brebbia stamp officially mean?
When did Rainer Barbi design pipes for Brebbia?
In which year did Brebbia first use the Vauen Konex filter system?
What was the link between Brebbia and Corsellini of Florence?
What does the word BREVETTATO, Italian for patented, mean on a Brebbia pipe?
W.Ø. Larsen
In which year was the W.Ø. Larsen name sold to Stanwell?
When did Nils Larsen buy the Georg Jensen factory, if Pipedia says that factory closed in 2001?
Did pipes sold by the shop before its own workshop carry the W.Ø. Larsen name?
What do the numbers in a stamp like Black 325, 01 mean?
Did other jubilee pipes carry a stamp like 121 AR?
How did Stanwell stamp the Larsen pipes it made?
Caminetto
Did Peppino Ascorti still make Caminetto pipes in the early 1980s, as some say?
Did Luigi Radice join at the end of 1968 or in 1969?
What do the letters L and B mean in the three-part stamp?
In which year did the four-number grid give way to the three-part stamp?
Did Caminetto production run without a stop from 1986 to 2013?
Do Tommi Ascorti's pipes since 2013 carry the same year number?
In which year exactly was the Tinder Box Golden Anniversary edition made?
Is there a date when CUCCIAGO (Co) changed to CUCCIAGO (CANTU) in the old stamps?
What does KS mean on a Business or Moustache pipe?
Big Ben
In which year did Gubbels buy the Big Ben name from the Amsterdam company?
Were Big Ben pipes sold before Gubbels owned the name? If so, who made them?
Is Big Ben still made after the 2012 bankruptcy, and where?
In which years were Barbados, Jockey, Maestro, Ranger, Viking, Challenger, Caribic and Straight Grain made?
When were the Reg. numbers, such as Reg. 34468, given? A Dutch trademark register could tell.
Is 1999 on a Private Collection pipe the year it was made?
Butz-Choquin
When did the acrylic extension replace albatross bone on the Origine?
In which years did the range grow from ten to seventy series? A dated catalogue would help.
Did the stamps change after Denis Blanc took over in 2006?
When was Fait main first stamped on Butz-Choquin pipes?
When did Paul Lanier retire, and Alain Albuisson take over the Maitre Pipier line?
In which years were the Collection, Cybele, Bellevue, Select, Free Hand, C'est bon, Auto-Sport and Frontenac made?
How late were Optimal pipes made?
Ben Wade
Did Danish Ben Wades stop in early 1986, as Pipedia's Preben Holm page says, or in 1989?
In which years was the stamp with both Leeds - England and London Made used?
When was the French-made Ben Wade Sienna made?
In which era were the Western, Majestic, Prominence, Royal Grain, Reflection, Spiral, Sitter and Matt Original made?
When did laser engraving begin on the new London pipes?
Did Champion production start again after the war? A dated Ben Wade catalogue would help.
Bewlay
When did Imperial Tobacco take over Bewlay: in 1902, as Davey says, or in the 1950s, as Pipedia's Bewlay page says?
When did Bewlay pipes stop: in the 1950s, as Pipedia says, or with the shops in the 1980s?
Which maker made which Bewlay grade, and in which years?
In which year was the Bewlay leaflet printed? A dated Bewlay price list would help.
In which year was the Dental Standard patent granted?
Orlik
Did the brass O and the straight MADE IN ENGLAND stop exactly in 1980, or did some pipes keep them for a while?
When did each model and series letter start and stop? A dated catalogue for each decade would help.
The year of Orlik Catalogue No. 70. The copy we know holds pictures only, with no printed year.
When was the serif MADE IN ENGLAND used on the Natural T 1155?
When does the cross logo on the mouthpiece appear?
Was the first shop in Bond Street or in Great Arthur Street?
When was Supergrain made? Our sources give no year.
The Dugout range of about 1914 to 1939 rests on one advert from 1921. More adverts would test it.
Bertram
Were pipes stamped BERTRAM before the new factory of 1927, and with what words?
Which makers supplied the bought-in Bertram pipes?
Did the shop sell Bertram pipes between the fire of the late 1960s and the closing in 1977? Pipephil.eu and Pipedia disagree.
Did the grade numbers change over time? A dated price list for each decade would turn a number into a range.
When did the group names Executive, Diplomat, Senator, Judicial, Envoy and Capitol start and stop?
The year of the catalogue. We know only that it is from 1945 or later.
The shop address: 910 or 920 Fourteenth Street. A move or a printing error.
The newspaper article of 1977 on the closing. Pipedia names it. We have not read it.
Dr. Grabow
The first year of the Dr. Grabow name: 1930 or 1931.
The year of the move to North Carolina. Mr. McKay gives 1952 to 1955 and calls it unsolved.
The first year of the Westbrook: about 1955 or 1957. Mr. McKay's two pages disagree.
The first year of the Eldorado. The first advert is from November 1961.
The end years of most lines. Our cabinet leaves them open.
The Standard line. One example is marked Fashioned by Linkman, which does not fit 1954.
The trademark year. Mr. McKay's list has it under 1947 and again under 1948.
The metal tube inside the stem, called the stinger, changed shape over the years. We cannot date by it yet.
The old two-digit line codes are not ranked rules in our cabinet yet.
Mr. McKay's own website is gone. We know his work only through Pipedia.
We have not seen the old adverts ourselves. We rely on Mr. McKay's reading of them.
Barling
The first year of the EB WB mark. Pipedia says the late 1850s or early 1860s.
The first year of four-digit numbers that start with 1. Our 1925 rests on one dated pipe.
When Barling pipes were first made in Denmark, and when that ended.
Whether EB WB was still used on silver after 1962. Pipedia shows a corporate pipe hallmarked 1965.
The years of the stem stamp REG'D 754 068. Pipedia says only that it is wartime.
The logo and the stem stamps are not ranked rules in our cabinet yet.
The number chart in the 1962 catalogue. We have it as machine-read text only.
The start of Guinea Grain: 1946 or 1953.
The Kopp facts rest on one shop's guide. We want Kopp's own word on 2020.
We have not read Tad Gage's article of 2000 itself. We know it through three sites that quote it.
Vauen
The year of the court case with Dunhill over the white dot. Pipedia gives only the 1920s.
The first year of the light blue and grey dots. Our 1925 is an estimate.
In 1921 Vauen said its export pipes before the First World War carried no VAUEN stamp. One source only.
We read that 1921 statement as machine-read text, not on the page image.
We read the 1909 trademark notice as machine-read text too, not on the page image.
The start of Auenland rests on one shop catalogue. We want Vauen's own word on 2013.
When the Lord of the Rings pipes began. Our sources give no year.
The years of lines such as Lucus, Pearl, Luxus, Basic, Il Maestro and Diamond.
Model numbers carry no design years yet in our files.
The US-ZONE, DRGM and DBGM rules are general German rules. We have no Vauen source for them.
Brigham
When the filter began: about 1937 (Pipedia), 1938 (Lemon), or after the Second World War (Pipephil).
The founding year: our brochure prints both 1902 and 1906.
When the first dot system ended: 1978 or 1980. Lemon's article gives both.
The stamps of the Pre-Patent pipes, 1906 to 1937. Lemon says they are unknown.
The exact end of the Norseman and Valhalla lines before the 1980 merger.
How to tell an old horizontal 3-dot pipe from a President by photo alone.
Our Brigham brochure prints no year. Its 8-grade dot list places it between 1938 and 1980.
The brochure speaks of the present patented pipe. That could mean before 1956. We have not confirmed it.
We have not read Charles Lemon's 2023 book. It could correct these dates.
BBB
Which trademark number is the BBB diamond. Pipedia says No. 39, with No. 40 a single B.
BBB's own booklet quotes a letter that calls No. 40 the BBB mark. Both say it was the first pipe trademark.
Who founded the firm in 1847. Pipedia names Adolph Frankau. Pipephil names Louis Blumfeld.
When Cadogan was formed: the early 1920s or the 1930s. Two Pipedia pages disagree.
The exact year the metal diamond gave way to the stamped logo.
The end years of 6 line names. Our ranges for them are estimates.
We have not read the 1912 catalogue No. XX or the 1960 catalogue. They could date lines and shapes.
Our BBB catalogue "London Made Briar Pipes" is undated. By our reading it is from 1972 or later.
It calls Tasman, Minerva and Medina new lines. It prints no year, so we do not date them.
Kriswill
The exact year the name changed from Kriswell to Kriswill: mid or late 1950s.
The exact year the Kolding firm failed: after 1975, in the late 1970s.
Who bought whom. Pipephil says Kriswill bought the Norwegian maker Lillehammer in the 1960s.
Pipedia says the opposite: Lillehammer bought the Kriswill name in the mid-1970s. Lillehammer closed in 1979.
How to tell a Spanish or a Dan Pipe Kriswill from a Kolding one by its stamps.
The first year of Dan Pipe's new Kriswill line. It was on sale in 2013.
We have not read the Kriswill catalogues of January 1969 and April 1970. They could date line names and shapes.
Sasieni
A newspaper advertisement of December 1923 sells "the pipe with the green spot", the Sasieni. This is one source only. Every other source says blue.
We have not yet read the 1935 and 1965 Sasieni catalogues. They could date single shapes.
Some shanks carry XS after the shape number. It marks a premium-priced shape. We hold no years for it.
The exact first year of the town names. Smith writes only "by 1935".
The exact last year of the pre-war Eight Dot: about 1939, or as late as 1946.
The pipephil chart shows a five-dot logo from about 2001. This is one source only, and we have not seen one.
Most seconds lines, and the Two Dot, have no firm years in our sources.
Schneiderwind
What does W.O. stand for? No document we hold says.
Which maker made each year? We know the maker for only some years.
Were there pipes in 1992 and 1996? We have not seen one yet.
How many pipes were made each year? We do not know.
When did the series end? We do not know.
One German trade listing says the shop has sold pipes in Aachen since 1846. This is one source only. The shop's own website gives no year.
A German trade article tells of a family handover at the shop. We could not open it yet.
Kaywoodie
When did the first Kaywoodie appear: 1915 (Stokes, quoting Hacker) or February 1919 (Pipedia)? We keep both.
When did the Italian-made Kaywoodies start? No source we hold gives a year.
Our catalogues list every shape for 1936, 1947, 1955 and 1970. We have not yet turned them into year brackets for each shape.
English Kaywoodies, made later by Oppenheimer, have their own lines. We hold no year brackets for them yet.
The Straight Grain grade is in the 1936 catalogue and again in 1968-69. Why it is missing between is not known.
We hold 731 old Kaywoodie newspaper advertisements, copied from the Library of Congress. They are not read for line years yet.
Durobit is not in the 1964-65 dealer album. Its start year of 1965 is an estimate.
GBD
Who took over GBD, and when. Pipephil says the Cadogan group, sometime in the 1970s. Pipedia names the 1981 merger. We use 1981 and keep both.
GBD shape numbers have four digits, for example 9242. We hold no chart of the years for each shape yet.
Many grade names have no start year in our sources. Examples: International, Virgin, Prodigy, Straight Grain, Bronze Velvet, Tapestry.
The perardua.net list of GBD lines is the source Pipedia cites. We could not open it, so its line years are not read yet.
We found no GBD Unique advertisement in British newspapers. Its start years rest on one source.
Camelia, New Standard, Pub and the Churchwarden line (a long-stem pipe) have no years in our cabinet yet.
Kiseru
We have no table for reading a signature (mei) yet. A signed pipe still needs a Japanese reader or a museum catalogue.
The exact company years of Murata, Tanigawa Seijiro Shoten and Iizuka Metal are not verified.
No source we read separates Meiji from Taisho from early Showa by shape alone. That is why the brackets stay wide.
Japanese-language sources, including the Tobacco and Salt Museum (Tabako to Shio) in Tokyo, are not read yet.
The monopoly years 1898 and 1904, and the 1979 kizami break, each rest on one source only.
The Tsuge founding year of 1936 comes from our briar records and was not re-read for this guide.
Comoy's
Serifs returning to the name in the 1960s, in a plainer typeface: G.L. Pease records it, and nobody else does. One source describing a gradual change is a hint, not a rule, so it is not in the rules table.
When Cadogan switched the stem C from a drilled one-piece inlay to a laser imprint. This is the single undated cliff on the brand and it matters, because it is the one mark that separates a 1980s Comoy's from a recent one. No published source gives a year — Green's guide says only "more recently." We have written to Cadogan themselves, who made both generations, and the fallbacks are Derek Green (who invites collector contact) and building a sequence of dated estate examples. Until somebody answers, our 1980–2000 and 1990-onward brackets are estimates and are ranked accordingly.
Whether Comoy's pipes have been made at all since the early 2000s. The smokingpipes house history states flatly that none have been produced since then. Green, writing in 2006, has Cadogan continuing production to the present day, and a 2013 trade piece is headlined "Comoys Come Back." We cannot reconcile the three, so we publish the dispute — and note its practical consequence: a Comoy's-stamped pipe that appears to be newer than about 2005 deserves a careful look rather than an assumption.
When the three-piece inlaid C was actually dropped. 1979 (smokingpipes) or the early 1980s (Green and pipephil)? Our bracket runs to 1985 to cover both. A dated example — a hallmarked band on a late three-piece-C pipe — would close this in one move, and it is the kind of thing a reader's own pipe could settle.
Where the LONDON MADE stamp really ends. About 1915 by one source, on into the 1930s by the other. That is a twenty-year disagreement on the brand's earliest stamp, and it is why our first bracket is as wide as it is.
Whether the Blue Riband was really named for the Queen Mary's 1936 crossing. It is presented as its author's belief and we have not been able to corroborate it: a search of the British newspaper record turned up no Comoy's Blue Riband advertising at all. We are not disputing the year — we simply cannot yet evidence it, and we would rather say so.
Which house owned the “City-de-Luxe” pipe. It appears in our own newspaper clips twice — sold in Buckie in 1931 at 5/6 "all shapes," and listed in a Bath wartime range in 1939 alongside Civic — which hints at the Cadogan or Civic family. We have deliberately encoded nothing, because a hint is not an attribution.
The shape numbers. Comoy's used three-digit shape codes and we hold a shape chart, but the classification has been described by a specialist as mercurial: a number was sometimes reused for a completely different shape. So we do not date by shape number alone and we have not built a shape channel for this brand — any future one will have to match number AND form. We do hold a few anchors: the Kruger Extraordinaire is 236, the Woodstock (later called the Danish) is 202, and a 1975 dealer catalogue prints a Vanguard shape list of 128, 186, 215, 296, 337 and 484.
Which grade carried which stamp in which year. Both of our main sources warn, independently, that different grades could carry different stamps in the same period. Neither has mapped it. Until somebody does, the honest instruction is the one we give above: never over-trust a single mark on this brand.
UK Silver Hallmarks
We do not hold a shield-shape or letter-font reference, and that is the single biggest gap on this page. The escutcheon around the date letter is what a professional uses to tell one cycle's lowercase e from another's; without it our engine returns candidates where it could return a year. A published, permission-clear shield typology for London and Birmingham would upgrade every ambiguous read we make.
Birmingham's two capital-O years, 1938 and 1963, cannot be separated on the band alone with what we hold. Every other mark on the pipe has to do that work.
Our charts cover London and Birmingham only. Chester is named in our own cabinet as a chart we intend to build and have not; Sheffield, Edinburgh and Glasgow are not built either. A pipe with a band from any of those offices currently gets nothing from us, and that is a coverage gap, not an evidence gap — the tables exist in the literature, we simply have not encoded them.
Dublin's chart lives inside the Peterson cabinet rather than in the general one, because its fineness boundaries are Dublin-specific. That means a NON-Peterson pipe with a Dublin-assayed band is not routed automatically today. Moving Dublin into the shared charts is a job on our list.
The Dublin fineness boundary is genuinely unsettled and we publish the conflict rather than a number: one handbook says the millesimal 925 mark replaced Hibernia in October 1992, another documents a 925 convention mark on export pipes from 1976, and our own encoding uses 2003. Until a primary source settles it we do not date from the fineness mark alone.
Our tables begin in 1876 for London and 1875 for Birmingham, and both stop at 1999. Earlier Victorian and Georgian cycles, and everything struck since 2000, are outside what we hold — so a genuinely early or a genuinely recent band gets an honest “not in our chart” rather than a guess.
We hold the changeover MONTH for each office — May at London, July at Birmingham, and 1 June until 1931 then 1 January at Dublin — but not the exact changeover day per year. That is why we publish a two-calendar-year straddle before 1975 instead of resolving it.
We do not hold a register of makers' or sponsors' marks. The EB WB of Barling is the one we can name; every other maker's mark on a pipe band is, to us, an unidentified pair of initials — and a sponsor's mark is often the fastest way to attribute an unmarked pipe.
The UK registered-design “Rd No” tables, which turn a registration number into a year from 1884 onward, are declared in our general cabinet as something to fetch and have not been fetched. That is a second exact-year route sitting unbuilt beside this one.
How often a hallmarked band on a pipe is a later repair rather than original work, nobody has quantified. We carry the warning and apply judgement; we would rather publish that than a false precision.
Clay Pipes
Who WLD was. It is a clear circular stem stamp with a clear archaeological context and no maker behind it. Walker's four-volume Bristol study sits in our reference shelf unmined; if the initials are in it, this rule rises from low the day we read it.
Who cut the JOHN LEWIS and D.R. stems, and what the 1666 on the reverse of the John Lewis stem actually commemorates. We treat it as a decorative date-like device because that is the safe reading, not because we know.
The Tudor rose is almost certainly not one maker. Until somebody publishes a rose typology fine enough to separate the workshops that used it, the honest bracket is the whole seventeenth century.
Our dated-marks table holds five marks. The real corpus is thousands — Oswald's appendix alone lists hundreds of makers by county, with active dates and apprenticeships, and we have transcribed only the Bristol pages so far. Every county we add is a clay pipe somebody can suddenly date.
We do not hold the Atkinson & Oswald London bowl typology, which is the other master series alongside Oswald's regional plates. A London-made bowl is therefore weaker in our hands than a West Country one, and that is a gap in coverage, not in the evidence.
The bore methods carry a known regional and quality bias — the Chesapeake volume graphs it — and nobody, ourselves included, has turned that graph into a correction factor. We publish the warning without a fix.
The American terra-cotta and probable American-Indian pipes recorded at Pope's Fort fall outside all three legs of this system entirely. They are handmade or moulded in a different tradition and need their own dating framework, which we have not built.
Bowl typology is not machine-readable in our engine. Matching a silhouette to a plate is still a human job here, and until that changes, a bowl fragment gets a slower answer from us than a stem does.
Stanwell
When the registration stamp actually stopped. This is the brand's biggest open question and we publish both sides rather than choose: the factory's own Managing Director says late 1960s to very early 1970s, and documented stamped pipes exist at 1975, 1979 and 1982. Our bracket runs to 1985 to hold the stragglers; our lean is that the great majority are pre-1970. A dated example from 1983 or 1984 would tighten this immediately.
What the 1979 “Jubilee 1979” pipe commemorates. It is stamped STANWELL, REGD No. 969-48, Jubilee, 1979 — and is not one of the decennial jubilees. The mbsdpipes guide suggests it may mark ten years since the Borup factory opened, and says openly that it does not know.
When the Borup factory opened. pipephil says 1965; pipedia and Smokingpipes say 1969. It does not affect any dating rule here, so we have not forced a choice — but it is unresolved, and it matters to the 1979 jubilee question above.
The start year of the Silver S line. Our bracket opens at 1970 and that figure is approximate — it is on the verify list, not the evidence list.
The launch year of Golden Contrast. Tom Eltang dates the line to 1982; our bracket opens at 1975 and cannot yet be tightened without a second account.
Lines we hold with no usable years at all, and therefore do not date by name: Brass Band, Brazilia, Bamboo, De Luxe, Royal Prince, Star, Antique, and the Anne Julie line.
Whether horn stems were ever stamped with the Stanwell S in either of its forms. The guide that documents the horn era says explicitly that this is unclear.
A single photographed Stanwell Old Briar stamped “Made in England” exists in the pipedia gallery. We have NOT encoded it and will not date by it: one uncorroborated example never becomes a rule. If it is genuine it would open a chapter of Stanwell history nobody has written.
Breaking up the Registration Era. It starts in 1948; its end is disputed, between about 1970 and 1985 (see the rule above). It is by far the longest period in any Stanwell dating system — the author of the guide we rely on asks openly for someone to subdivide it. We would like to be the ones who do, and we do not yet have the evidence.
The Danish press record can probably be turned into primary evidence. Our survey found the specific months that matter — April, September, November and December 1948 — but the page text of post-1924 Danish newspapers is access-restricted, so we have counts and dates without the words. A scan request for roughly fifteen pages is prepared and pending.
Sub-brands and seconds are outside this guide entirely: Scandia, Danish Sovereign, Danske Club, Royal Danish, Royal Guard, Royal Sovereign, Majestic, Svendson, Sailor, Sorn, Henley, Kong Christian, Bijou, Reddish, Danish Quaint, Danish Natural. They carry their own numbering and deserve their own work.
Savinelli
The year the four-digit shape codes stopped. Three sources agree it happened and none will name a year: pipedia says circa the 1960s–1970s, pipephil says a four-digit pipe predates the 1970s, Smokingpipes says pre-1970. We close the bracket at 1979 and say openly that the true cliff is probably earlier.
We publish no floor for three-digit shape codes. A three-digit code only tells you the pipe is not early, and the transition years are exactly the years in dispute — encoding a floor there would be inventing precision we do not have.
The “second digit was always a zero” rule, relayed from Savinelli, is contradicted by pipephil's own La Milano stamped 4907. Both are published; neither is discarded.
When the Punto Oro Super ended — if it ended. Pipephil wrote in 2013 that it was cancelled a few years after its early-1980s launch, but Savinelli's current catalogue still lists it. We publish the floor only.
“Alligator” cannot date a pipe by name alone: a vintage Alligator line appears in the old brochures AND a modern colourful Alligator was introduced around 2005 (“probably close to 20” years before May 2025). Finish and stem context are needed.
Lines we hold with no usable years at all: Giubileo d'Oro, Elegance, Autograph, Oscar, Siena, Onda, Tundra, New Art, Arcobaleno, Ottavia (revived “lately” as the limited Ottagono), Riviera, and the “Favorite” editions (Bing's, Byron's, Clark's, Ginger's, Achille's I–III). The Columbus series is US-market only and is probably the 1992 anniversary issue — probably is not a source, so it stays here.
La Milano: one caption dates an example “circa 1949–50s.” A single uncorroborated example never becomes a rule.
Seconds and sub-brands follow their own rules and are not dated by this guide: Albatross, Bent Bob's, Baronet, Coronet, Duca, Hercules; Estella (rejected Autographs) and Fiammata (rejected Giubileo d'Oro straight grains); Arnold's, Kings Cross, Capt. Warren and Royal Oak on the US side.
The shop era before 1948. Pipedia holds photographed ASM-in-a-triangle and MILANO examples, but also an 'F. Savinelli Genova Silver 0115' pipe its own contributor cannot place — a Genoa shop pipe of an era we cannot name from our sources. Unresolved, and we would welcome evidence.
The Savinelli shape chart (pipephil's, and the 2017 chart on pipedia) is a shape reference, not a dating channel: it carries no design years. Turning it into one is registered work, not a promise.
Dunhill
The intro years for the later finishes (Chestnut, County, Amber Root) are approximate in our cabinet and not yet verbatim-verified against the guide — we publish them low-confidence and flagged rather than as firm floors.
The end year of the 5861/12 Inner Tube patent: pipephil's usage records (to 1926) and the Loring/Field guide table (to 1935) disagree. We keep the wide 1912–1935 bracket until a primary source settles it.
A bare “417574” without the /34 suffix can turn up on a late-1930s pipe; where it does, we widen the bracket honestly rather than force the 1942–1954 window.
Peterson
The end year of the “Made in Eire” circle: period sources disagree (1941 vs 1947). We publish the wide bracket until a primary source settles it.
The .925 fineness boundary on silver bands: one handbook says the millesimal 925 mark replaced Hibernia in October 1992, another documents a 925 convention mark on export pipes from 1976, while our encoded boundary is 2003. The conflict is recorded and unresolved — we do not guess.
Straight Patent-era shapes 29–36 (1896–c.1925): bare two-digit numbers collide with too many other marks to encode safely. Expert reading only.
The first year of the St. Patrick's Day pipes. Mark Irwin dates the series from 1998 and cites a dated primary document for it — the final Hollco-Rohr sales catalogue of 15 July 1998, which carries both the first St. Patrick's Day and the first 4th of July pipe. Pipedia says the pipe was first issued in the mid-1980s and was previously called the Flag Pipe. A dated catalogue is the stronger evidence, but it proves the series existed by 1998, not that nothing preceded it — so the floor stays at 1985 and the question stays open.
When the 306(a) XL Oom Paul actually stopped being made. The catalogue record ends cleanly in 1937; the only account of what followed is that it “probably continued in production for several years,” which is not a year. Our bracket runs to 1945 as a deliberate allowance, and the slimmer Shamrock 02 successor being in production by the late 1940s is the closest thing to a ceiling anyone has offered. A dated example — a hallmarked band or a datable country stamp on a genuine thick-shank 306 or 356 — would settle it in one move.
When the “Made in England” stamp begins and ends. Mark Irwin dates the London manufacturing factory at 74–77 White Lion Street from late 1937 to its dissolution on 5 September 1963, citing the London Gazette of 17 September 1963 — and two further posts of his say the same. Pipedia instead has Peterson keeping a London factory “since 1899” and the stamp ending in 1969/70; it appears to be counting the London shops, which did open in 1899. Because the two accounts differ at both ends we keep the wide 1895–1970 bracket rather than pick a winner, and publish 1937–1963 as the documented lean.
Whether a Peterson 309 made after 2013 is actually stamped 309. The shape's general production ended in 2013 and is well documented, but the same source records later appearances in the Derry Rustic and Arklow lines and a commissioned PPN 2024 309 System Spigot — while the same shape sold as the 2019 Pipe of the Year was stamped “4AB,” not 309. So our ceiling of 2024 is an allowance covering a real possibility, not a proven stamp. A clear photograph of the shank of a post-2013 309 would settle it in one move, in either direction.
When the 305(a) bent dublin actually stopped being made, and when it actually started. Neither end is nailed down. The start: the paper record launches it in the 1978 Peterson-Glass catalog, while our 1975 floor rests on one hallmarked example known from a photograph — so a second dated pre-1978 example, or a 1975–77 catalogue page, would turn a single pipe into a period. The end: the only statements anyone has published are that the calabash replaced it “as early as 1984” and that the larger version was “being replaced by the mid-1980s,” which is why our ceiling is 1986 and is an allowance rather than a finding. A hallmarked 305(a) from 1985 or 1986 would settle the far end in one move — and so, in the other direction, would a catalogue showing the dublin gone in 1984.
When the 308 actually left production. The catalogue trail is unusually rich for once and still does not close: a 1955 catalogue with a DISCONTINUED stamp on it of unknown date, a dated trade-press advertisement from May 1959 announcing a change to the System bent range, and then no new catalogue at all until 1965. Somewhere in those ten years the shape stopped. A hallmarked 308 from the early 1960s would settle it instantly — and would also tell us we were right to widen our bracket rather than trust the tidy year.
Chacom
Whether the Chacom brand was created in 1928 or 1934. We publish 1928 because three records say so, including the company's own printed timeline, and only one page of one site says 1934 — but nobody has yet produced a dated 1928 or 1929 document naming the brand, which is what would end the argument for good.
The exact year Chapuis-Comoy became independent of Comoy's of London. We hold 1971 (Pipedia), 1972 (Pipephil's factory document), 1971 again (Pipephil's logo page, in passing) and a blurred digit that reads as 1973 in the company's own catalogue timeline. A dated trade-press announcement would settle it.
When the undated lines began: Cap Blanc, Concorde, Courbet, Premier, Prestige, Rocky, Synchro, Dynastie and Idéal. Every one of these is a line we can identify and cannot date. A dated catalogue or price list naming any of them turns a low into a real floor.
The 1979 Chacom catalogue. We have mined two undated catalogues already; the 1979 one would give us a third time point and let us publish first-seen and last-seen brackets for Chacom shape numbers, which nobody has done publicly as far as we know.
The precise date of the two catalogues we hold. The first carries “un siècle et demi d'expérience” on the cover — a century and a half from the family's 1825 origin, so about 1975 — but also a two-digit telephone number that belongs to a much earlier decade. Our honest bracket for it is 1957 to 1975, and we would love to close it.
Whether the bold tailed C really is an export stamp. Pipephil raises it and marks it unconfirmed; we have found nothing that confirms or refutes it.
Vintage Ropp, 1870 to 1991, has no cabinet of its own yet — so although Chapuis-Comoy has owned the name since 1994, we deliberately refuse to date any Ropp pipe from the Chacom cabinet. Building that cabinet is the honest fix, and it is on our list.
Whether Chacom ever stamped a year. We have found no year-stamped Chacom, which is why this guide has no exact-year table like the Peterson or Dunhill guides. If a commemorative or anniversary pipe carries a stamped year, we would like to see it.
When the seconds Bayard and Dr Berger were made. Both are documented as Chacom seconds and neither has a documented window.
Charatan · James Upshall
Reuben Charatan's death: the Ferrara study says 1960, Kennedy Barnes said 1962 on air. Both are recorded; we do not pick one, and the eras either side stay wide.
When Dunhill took Charatan: Ferrara documents the Lane purchase in April 1976, while Pipedia's main article says 1978. We publish both and date pipes from features, not from the ownership year.
Belvedere as a 1950s–60s Charatan line: a specialist dealer dates Belvedere examples to the tapered era, but Belvedere is not among the five 1951 qualities and we have found no dated primary for it. Not encoded — a dealer's era-guess is not evidence.
The Double Comfort's true first year: Charatan lore claims the 1950s, but no pre-1961 Double Comfort advertisement has surfaced in our newspaper and periodical sweeps. Until one does, the floor stays 1961.
“FH” on Charatan and Upshall stampings: documented on real pipes in both houses, meaning unresolved. We would rather say so than invent an expansion.
The Coronation grade at the top of the 1965 Lane ladder: the name suggests the 1953 coronation, but that is a guess and we have not verified it.
James Upshall's move from Tilshead in Wiltshire to Brenchley in Kent: the move is real — a 2006 snapshot places the workshop at Brenchley — but no source we hold gives the year, so it is not encoded as a location cliff.
What the P and S grade letters stand for: Kennedy Barnes was asked on air and his answer is partly lost in a phone-line dropout. A fragment sounds like “Perfection.” We will not publish a fragment as a fact.
The 1984 and 1996 Upshall cliffs remain low confidence: the founder interviews that could confirm them have audio gaps exactly where the answers should be. Re-processing those passages is a registered task.
Closing a Gap
If you hold the catalogue page, the hallmarked example, the period advertisement, or the recorded interview that answers one of these, we want to see it. A dated primary document is exactly what most of these questions are waiting on.
Corrections are credited by name in the entry's changelog, and the confidence rank rises with the evidence — publicly, so anyone reading later can see what changed and why.
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