English Estates: Charatan's Make Special Dublin (171DC) Tobacco Pipe

Charatan boasts a long, well-respected history of pipe making, with Frederick Charatan founding the business in 1863. One of the first pipe makers in England, Charatan began by producing meerschaum pipes, finding great success and quickly needing to relocate to a larger workshop, and it was here that Charatan began to carve briar pipes. Charatan has the rare distinction of being the first marque in England to hand-make their briar pipes from start to finish, starting with a raw block of burl and a vulcanite blank, coining the process with the now-iconic stamping of "Charatan's Make." Charatan was so successful that, before Dunhill began to make their own briars, Charatan actually supplied the legendary marque with pipes from 1908 to 1910. In 1962, then leader Reuben Charatan passed away, and the rights to the Charatan brand were sold in the next few years to Lane, who was the primary distributor for their pipes. Charatan then changed hands several more times in the following years, before being bought by Dunhill in 2002. This "171DC" Dublin from the English brand is a sleek and slender interpretation of the classic shape which places the majority of the visual emphasis on the bowl. Said bowl stands atop a rounded, pronounced heel that descends past the transitional area, its bulbous curvature doing well to support the flare of the bowl's walls to the rim. A wide transition here leaves plenty of room to drape a digit and gives way to a gently tapering shank paired to one of Charatan's iconic Double Comfort saddle stems, its black vulcanite and the stummel's warm stain keeping the finish here timeless.