English Estates: Dunhill Microphone (37) (1981) (Unsmoked) Tobacco Pipe

For nearly four decades, the British Pipesmokers' Council honored a famous pipe smoking Brit each year with the Pipe Smoker of the Year award, an honor for which Dunhill crafted a special-edition pipe. Winners included scientists, actors, and TV and radio personalities like the final, 2003 recipient, Stephen Fry.

In 1982, BBC Radio DJ Dave Lee Travis received the honor, and Dunhill was commissioned to make this special radio-themed Microphone design, a numbered edition of which only 50 were made. The #1 stamped piece was placed on display at the Alfred Dunhill Museum in London, while the #2 pipe was presented to Lee Travis himself. This pipe is #37 in the series, and something quite special in the world of collectible pipes.

It features a bowl of briar up top, specially rusticated to evoke the grill of a microphone, and removable from the vulcanite that forms the microphone's handle. Said handle has a small, Calabash-like chamber inside, to which the metal push-style base of the stem connects. The stem is a sleek double-bend of vulcanite, cleverly evocative of a microphone's cord, and the pipe comes complete with a display stand that is shaped to resemble a vintage record. Still in unsmoked condition, this is only the second from the special series we have ever had the pleasure of offering, and is quite a find.