Charatan Pipe Dating

[brentona]

Is anyone savvy with dating Charatan Pipes?
The B&M I work at has had this awesome Charatan sitting on the store's employee pipe rack for over a year now and I have been eyeing it up. So, tonight at work I took it down, cleaned it up, polished it, etc. and it looks a world of different.
Me being the guy I am instantly wants it and is informed it's an estate pipe for sale, so, naturally, it's going to be mine.

That aside, I was curious to its age. Here's some info:

Shank Markings:
Charatan's Make
LONDON, ENGLAND
SPECIAL
(L) [curly "L" in a circle]

(opposite side)
4420DC (double comfort stem markings I do believe)

On the Stem:
REGB No.
203573

(opposite side)
Interlocking "CP"

Thanks for any and all help!!

-- Brent

 

[Frost]

From my web readings this is what I think I can confidently tell you:

The L indicates that it is lane era, so sometine between 1955 and the sale of charatan to dunhill in 1978. Not all Lane Era charatans have the L. Some that were produces specifically for sale in Europe don't have it, if I remember right. Or maybe it was that some produced specifically for sale in the US don't have it...I forget which.

The DC is indeed the double comfort bit stamping, a lane era inventions if I remember correctly. An X after the shape number would indicate standard bit I believe.

"Special" is one of their highish middleish grades I think, a notch or two below "Perfection" if I recall correctly. The grading terms changed a bit throughout the years.

The pre lane are generally considered the most desirable, lane era less so but still worthy, and the post dunhill sale pipes are the least desirable as far as collectability goes.

Chris' pipe pages has a couple of old catalogs with some charatan shapes in them...might want to try browsing through to see if you can find one of similar shape with your shape number: http://pipepages.com/charatan.htm


The thing I remember most from researching charatans is that dating them can be confusing as hell. :lol:

Edit: Also read here for some info, but my understanding is that some of the info on this page is incorrect...but not sure what:

http://hozzenplozz.de/CharatanbyIRyan.htm

 

[shootist51]

Is anyone savvy with dating Charatan Pipes?
The B&M I work at has had this awesome Charatan sitting on the store's employee pipe rack for over a year now and I have been eyeing it up. So, tonight at work I took it down, cleaned it up, polished it, etc. and it looks a world of different.
Me being the guy I am instantly wants it and is informed it's an estate pipe for sale, so, naturally, it's going to be mine.

That aside, I was curious to its age. Here's some info:

Shank Markings:
Charatan's Make
LONDON, ENGLAND
SPECIAL
(L) [curly "L" in a circle]

(opposite side)
4420DC (double comfort stem markings I do believe)

On the Stem:
REGB No.
203573

(opposite side)
Interlocking "CP"

Thanks for any and all help!!

-- Brent

Brent,
I'm not an expert, however, I own several Charatans and everything I have read says that the "L" stamp indicates that the pipe was manufactured during what is called the Lane era. This was the period when Herman(?) Lane was the company importing Charatan to the States. It started in the early 1960's, I think, and continued until Dunhill purchased the company, some time, I think, in the late 1970's.
Hope this helps.
shootist51

 

[brentona]

Guys --

Thanks so much for your timely responses, I really appreciate it!
I will be doing some reading, and cleaning of this pipe some more this evening.
It so happens that there are some Charatan Experts (even in THE Charatan Club) in one of the pipe clubs I belong to.
I'll post some info as I get it, thanks again!

-- Brent

 

[Rusty]

There are a couple of reasonable articles out on the web. The Ivy Ryan one (cited above) is certainly worth reading just to get a bit of the flavour of the Dunhill vs. Charatan rivalry. There is also the pipedia aricle:
http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Charatan
But one of the best in recent years was written for the P&T Magazine by Tad Gage. You can find it on the archive here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070624230857/www.pipeguy.com/charatan.htm

Just a small clarification on shape number / stem types stamping:
4420DC - indicates a double comfort stem
4420X - indicates a normal saddle stem
4420 - indicates a normal taper stem (ie without the X or DC)

The Lane era is generally considered to be bracketed by the years 1955-1984. H. Lane imported Charatan pipes starting in the late 40's to early 50's. Lane became the sole distributor of Charatan pipes in the US in '55. He acquired Charatan in the early 60's. Carreras-Rothman acquired Lane via their subsidiary Dunhill (owned by C-R since '67) in the mid 70s. Charatan's Prescott st. factory was closed in 1982 and pipe making ops integrated into Dunhill. In 1988 Dunhill sold the Charatan pipe brand to JB Russell. The Charatan tobacco brand remained with Rothman's. Dunhill (now a subsidiary of Richemont) reacquired the Charatan pipe brand from JBR in 2002. And Colin Fromm (ex-Charatan master carver), working for Dunhill, is now making Charatan pipes again. In 1999 Lane became a BAT asset when BAT acquired Rothman's International. In 2004 BAT spun off Lane long with B&W and Lane was integrated within Reynolds where their distribution ops have become part of Conwood. The Charatan pipe tobacco TM also became a BAT asset with their acquisition of Rothman's but today that TM is owned by the Skandinavian Tobacco group (STG). It may be one of many pipe tobacco TM's that was sold to STG in early 2007. We now see it on their list:
http://www.st-group.com/product+range/pipe+tobacco/complete+brand+list
Incidentally, that list is quite interesting because it's a piece of the puzzle that lets us get closer to determining which BAT pipe tobacco TMs STG actually purchased in the deal announced here:
http://www.st-group.com/press+room+and+contact/press+releases+view?ID=19

 

[ftrplt]

There are a couple of reasonable articles out on the web. The Ivy Ryan one (cited above) is certainly worth reading just to get a bit of the flavour of the Dunhill vs. Charatan rivalry. There is also the pipedia aricle:
http://pipedia.org/index.php?title=Charatan
But one of the best in recent years was written for the P&T Magazine by Tad Gage. You can find it on the archive here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070624230857/www.pipeguy.com/charatan.htm

Just a small clarification on shape number / stem types stamping:
4420DC - indicates a double comfort stem
4420X - indicates a normal saddle stem
4420 - indicates a normal taper stem (ie without the X or DC)

The Lane era is generally considered to be bracketed by the years 1955-1984. H. Lane imported Charatan pipes starting in the late 40's to early 50's. Lane became the sole distributor of Charatan pipes in the US in '55. He acquired Charatan in the early 60's. Carreras-Rothman acquired Lane via their subsidiary Dunhill (owned by C-R since '67) in the mid 70s. Charatan's Prescott st. factory was closed in 1982 and pipe making ops integrated into Dunhill. In 1988 Dunhill sold the Charatan pipe brand to JB Russell. The Charatan tobacco brand remained with Rothman's. Dunhill (now a subsidiary of Richemont) reacquired the Charatan pipe brand from JBR in 2002. And Colin Fromm (ex-Charatan master carver), working for Dunhill, is now making Charatan pipes again. In 1999 Lane became a BAT asset when BAT acquired Rothman's International. In 2004 BAT spun off Lane long with B&W and Lane was integrated within Reynolds where their distribution ops have become part of Conwood. The Charatan pipe tobacco TM also became a BAT asset with their acquisition of Rothman's but today that TM is owned by the Skandinavian Tobacco group (STG). It may be one of many pipe tobacco TM's that was sold to STG in early 2007. We now see it on their list:
http://www.st-group.com/product+range/pipe+tobacco/complete+brand+list
Incidentally, that list is quite interesting because it's a piece of the puzzle that lets us get closer to determining which BAT pipe tobacco TMs STG actually purchased in the deal announced here:
http://www.st-group.com/press+room+and+contact/press+releases+view?ID=19

Yo Rusty,

That is one hell of a post #2!!!!! Thanks :cheers: FTRPLT