Kaywoodie Signet Rustic Straight Prince Estate Pipe - Vulcanite Fishtail Stem, Wide Metal Band

The metal tenon on this stem is not decoration - it is the fitting Kaywoodie built its name on.

Stamped Kaywoodie Signet on the shank, this is a rustic-finish straight prince: a rounded bowl on a straight shank, a tapered vulcanite stem, and a wide metal band at the joint. The tenon itself is metal, threading into the shank rather than into a rubber or vulcanite stub, and the bit is cut fishtail. No filter is fitted.

Kaywoodie traces back to 1851, when Kaufmann Bros. opened in New York selling meerschaum and clay pipes. Bondy joined the firm as a partner in 1854, and the business became KB&B. KB&B carried its own briar line from around 1900 through the years following the First World War, and the Kaywoodie name was created in 1915; for a year or two the two names ran together, a transition documented by a prototype name, Dinwoodie, that never reached production. Around 1925 the company introduced its screw-in Drinkless fitment, the Synchro-Stem, combining a metal tenon threaded directly into the briar with a removable absorbent filter. The metal screw tenon on this pipe is that same fitting, though this example carries no filter insert. At its peak Kaywoodie was the largest single consumer of briar in the world. Yello-Bole, the company's lower grade sister brand, reached the market in 1933 and is stamped KBB without the ampersand, distinguishing it from the older KB&B mark, which was dropped from Kaywoodie shanks before 1936. The Second World War briar shortage is the point collectors mark as the start of a decline in quality across the line. S.M. Frank & Co. later acquired the Kaywoodie name; an Italian-made drugstore-grade revival followed, marked with a white-outline cloverleaf, and a US-made revival has appeared more recently. English-made Kaywoodies also existed, stamped New York and London, later produced under Oppenheimer.

THE MARKS
- Shank stamped: KAYWOODIE SIGNET

The prince belongs to the apple family of shapes: a low, rounded bowl, flattened in profile compared with a billiard's, meant to sit low and wide in the hand rather than tall and narrow. Cut straight here, without a bend, the stem runs on the same line as the shank - a plainer, more formal presentation than the bent versions of the same shape. The stem tapers from the wide metal band down to a fishtail bit, the flared slot spreading the bite across two prongs rather than concentrating it at a single round tip, and easing the draw compared to a plain oval taper.

The bowl carries a rustic finish rather than a smooth polish: the surface is cut or tooled in a controlled pattern instead of being buffed to show grain, a treatment that roughens the grip and lets a maker use briar with more surface character than a smooth grade would tolerate, since the texture becomes the finish rather than something a flaw hides beneath. Grain is not read the way it would be on a polished bowl; depth and pattern of the rustication are what a collector examines instead. Finish and grain: see the photographs.

Condition: presmoked, graded very good. A tiny bite mark is present on the mouthpiece.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 160mm (6.4") - bowl height 38mm (1.5") - bowl width 40mm (1.6") - bowl depth 33mm (1.3") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 1.6 oz

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

SKU: 081