Welcome to another episode of All Pipes Considered, with a special limited-edition Dunhill edition. This is a project that was in the works for many years. If you are a pipe enthusiast at all, particularly if you're a Dunhill collector or a Dunhill fanboy like I am, you have probably seen either modern versions of this, or maybe even in the old catalogs, versions that they did of cased pipe sets. We are excited to share Dunhill Daily Pipe Sets.

[Shane Ireland]: The cased sets are something that Dunhill is really known for, and I think they pioneered the presentation of it. I think most notably the seven-day set, with one pipe for each day of the week. They can either be similar shapes in different finishes, different shapes in the same finish, or a total mix of everything. We've seen some gorgeous vintage examples over the years that have inspired us to bring some of that flare to a handful of projects that we collaborated with them on recently.

We did an anniversary set of two pipes in a Ventage case for our 20th anniversary in 2020 for Smokingpipes. We've done a handful of other collaborations with them since then.

[Truett Smith]: But all of them have been two-pipe sets.

[SI]: My personal favorite was the two stem set, with the short stem and the Demi Churchwarden stem combined with the engine-turned Tulip Army mount. That was the 2023 Smokingpipes Exclusive collaboration.

These sets are inspired by the seven-day set and the two-pipe Ventage set, which I think is a little more convenient for travel than the seven-day set. These are the Daily sets.

Dunhill Daily Sets

So the design here, and the whole idea is that you have one day's worth of a rotation in a single, convenient Ventage case. What you have here is a pipe designated for morning, midday, and evening. I think a lot of us tend to think of pipes as either morning, all day, or evening smokes, or maybe we think of tobaccos that way. It's a little bit more compact and the more travel-friendly version of the seven-day set, but a little bit more to offer than a two-pipe set, specifically with the intentionality of pipes that are dedicated for different times of the day, and the variations that are possible when you do that. I really love the idea. I'm so glad to finally see them, and the execution is fantastic.

[TS]: Stellar, yeah. There's different finishes, some of them are all the same finish, some of them are a mix of finishes.

[SI]: Some with silver, some without silver. There's a little bit of something for everybody here.

[TS]: A lot of Dunhill finishes are represented. We've got Bruyere, Dress, Shell Briar. There's no Ruby Bark.

[SI]: There's no Tanshell either. The rarest of the Dunhill finishes.

[TS]: The rarest of the Dunhill finishes are not represented. However, we do have some Dead Root offerings, which is really cool.

[SI]: Yes, there are some Dead Root offerings and some Root Briar.

One of the things I personally wanted to do with this — because the idea and the concept for this is something that Kalmon at Dunhill and ourselves were really excited about, and you can find similar sets elsewhere in the future, I'm sure — is to individually pick each bowl, each pipe, and the combinations in there.

What I was most hoping to achieve — and some of that is also the sort of terracotta almost, light brown leather, and the sand colored inside here, camel, whatever you wanna call it — is that I wanted these to feel vintage. There are some Cumberland County and Chestnut examples here, which are relatively recent finishes in the Dunhill line, as is the Amber Root. But really most of this focuses on the first handful of Dunhill finishes ever created, which is Root, Bruyere, and Shell.

[TS]: Yeah, and the shapes are what Dunhill has been making for decades, if not longer. All of them are gonna be the 07 Prince in, I think, Group Three size.

[SI]: And the 4217 squat Bulldog, 42 denoting the saddle stem. I think most of them are saddle stems, if I'm not mistaken, and then the 4103 iconic Billiard.

We made sure that the pairings varied the finishes between those shapes, and even the places in the set for what time of day they were designated for, so there's a lot of variation here. It's really fun. A lot of individuality between each set, really each one is nearly one of a kind.

Ventage Cases

[TS]: Yeah, a little bit about the Ventage cases: At first glance they seem like very elegant, nice, hard shell cases, but there is actually a practical benefit to them. I don't know when Dunhill created these, but they've been around for a long time. The design actually has these grooves right above the chamber.

[SI]: Effectively ports.

[TS]: Yeah, ports that then come out the back, and the idea is it promotes airflow when these pipes are stored, so after you're done smoking 'em, you put them back in the case and that airflow dries them out and makes them ready to smoke the next day. It's the right amount of resting for those who say 24 hours per bowl smoked or whatever. These cases allow you to rest the pipes effectively while still keeping them secure in the case itself.

[SI]: Not only are these just really beautiful presentation pieces and collector's items, if you are the type of pipe smoker, I think like both of us, where you don't have any pipes in your collections that don't get smoked, what I love about the idea of this too is that it's compact. Personally, I would never see myself taking a seven-day set with me, even if I was on a longer vacation, but I really love how compact the three-pipe set is here. It's actually not that much larger than the Ventage two-pipe cases. Of course, a little bit, yes, but, I think you still have something that's very practical.

[TS]: You can slip in a briefcase, a backpack, a briefcase, or on top of your clothes in a suitcase.

[SI]: The pipes are very well protected and honestly, with use, these are gonna patina and look gorgeous over time. I can understand the desire to keep them pristine, and that's probably what I would do myself, but yeah, these are made to be used and designed that way, and I really love the practicality.

Now this could obviously be used as a weekend set if you wanna smoke one pipe a day and you have a couple of pipes with you and you're going away for a weekend. I will say that with three pipes in a daily rotation, it is definitely possible to get away with smoking all three of them in a day for a number of days in a row before you feel like you really need to give them a rest.

Convenience & Encapsulating the Best of Dunhill

It's a really fun thing and I love the idea of, frankly, not having to make choices about what I'm gonna smoke. I think a lot of us agonize over what pipes to bring. If you find one of these sets that is to your preferred specification, like whether it's Prince first thing in the morning or Prince in the evening, etcetera, I think you'll find a set that you can just grab and go, or keep handy at your desk, your home office, or wherever. That will take a little bit of the decision making out of the process so you can just enjoy the pipes.

[TS]: I also think, as a whole, these sets encapsulate what Dunhill is known for and what people love about Dunhill. You have the Ventage cases, which are obviously exclusive to the brand, and then I think I could argue these shapes are some of Dunhill's most celebrated, iconic, and most recognized. Obviously the 03 has been a staple for forever, but this specific squat Bulldog is something that, even before I worked at Smokingpipes, I feel like a very iconic Dunhill shape.

[SI]: The 17 Bulldog and the 07 Prince are also arguably amongst what I think of as the most English, Anglo-French pipe shapes. There's a lot of crossover between what the French were doing and what the English were doing in terms of the aesthetic of these classic pipes. I think the 4103 or any of the 103 or 03 Billiard shapes by Dunhill are sort of the benchmark for the Billiard in modern pipe making across the world.

[TS]: Yeah, in the same way that for those familiar with Castello's 55 shape, any other maker that makes a similar rendition, everyone sees that as an homage to Castello. This squat Bulldog, if it's made by anyone else, everyone's gonna see it as an homage to Dunhill.

[SI]: I think this is the perfect evolution of all of the elements that put Dunhill on the map and really changed pipe making and pipe design forever after that.

[TS]: And how they've preserved it to this day.

[SI]: It's a modern version and a little time capsule. We wanted something that felt like you could have picked it out of one of the old catalogs, and I think they delivered that just perfectly. Check out the selection of Dunhill Daily Sets and I hope you find one that you enjoy.