Large old Bertram

[docrof62]

I found this site and immediately signed on. I am an old pipe smoker who gave it up in the 80s and just in the last year have happily come back to smoking my old pipes. Immensely enjoyable. I have recently started acquiring old pipes from places, people and makers that are fondly memorable in my life. Bertram pipes is one of them. JHW, Wilke, Ehrlich, Burak, and Edwards are others. I have done some minor reconditioning, but am afraid to do the major and beautiful reconditioning that has been done on this Bertram. So I stay away from pipes that look less well kept.
I will remember the Bertram shop and the long gone Benaderets store as 2 of my favorite places to hang out when I was in those cities.
Bertram pipes are hard to find, especially the more unique shapes and I suspect younger briar lovers no very little about them. They are one of the few American makers who treated their pipes, much like the Brits did and do at Ferndown, Ashton, Northern Briars and of course the Grand Daddy; Dunhill.

 

[bent bulldog]

What a spectacular transformation, great rejuvenation job! I don't know how much you know about Bertram's but it was a very highly respected shop on Pennsylvania avenue back in the day. Does anyone know if it still exists? When I was studying in the D.C area in 1968 I, of course being a college student had to outfit myself with a pipe if for no other reason than to automatically add 50 points to my I.Q., you know , the image is everything. Anyway I wandered into Bertrams on a Saturday afternoon and purchased a pipe much like the one you bought, also picked up a pouch of Sail tobacco in the yellow pouch mainly because one of my favorite college professors smoked that stuff. Anyway I believe I paid about eight dollars for the pipe which was a pretty good chunk of change for a pipe in 1968 and enjoyed it for years, fortunately I graduated from Sail to nice Virginias and Latakia mixtures bucause that Sail yellow turned my tongue into a raw piece of meat. Some of you guys correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that most of Bertam's house brand pipes were made by Weber, a fine old pipe company which provided high quality pipes to the trade back in the day. Again, a beautiful rejuv. I have a buffing wheel, jewelers rouge and wax in my shop but do not think I could have done any better. Just a quick aside: I got together with that professor the following year for a drink. He was a solitary type and lived alone and when I called on him for a drink to celebrate the end of the semester he only had one cup to pour the Johnny Walker into so he gave me that cup and drank his scotch out of a Sail yellow tobacco tin. I never thought to ask if the scotch improved the tobacco or vice versa.

 

[docrof62]

Bertram pipe shop is long gone. After the third Mr. Bertram passed away in the sixties, his wife ran it for several years and then sold it' After the MLK riots in DC, the neighborhood got tawdry and the new owner gave up. In the heyday(before and after WW2) they made pipes upstairs and had many famous customers in DC as well as internationally, (Even Joe Stalin).
Until the sixties , they made many of their own pipes in a factory upstairs. There is a article in a 1950 Popular Mechanics, as well as many other historical references on line. Later they had some well known pipe manufacturers make pipes for them and yes one of them was Weber. As the business changed, most of the well known pipe shops in the big cities started doing this. What we are all looking for is (as shown) real Bertram manufactured pipes. They had thier own system of grading briar from 20 to 80 (occasionally higher; I have seen 120, very rare). The most expensive were $10-20 in the early sixties.
Somewhere on line is a copy of a 1960-61 Bertram Catalog you would enjoy.

 

[bent bulldog]

docroft62, thanks for the great info on Bertrams. The one I bought in 1968 was probably a Weber. I had no idea that Bertrams at one time made their own pipes. I also remember Benedarets in the Bay area back when they along with Grants and Telfords were the premier shops in San Francisco.

 

[monbla256]

Here's a link to a copy of a Bertram's catalog from 1950 for ya.

http://pipepages.com/bertram1

 

[riff raff]

Sadly, here is the street view of where the shop was located.

 

[klause]

Very, very nice - thats a lovely pipe.

And, a great smoke to top it all off - doesn't get much better, eh?

 

[cajun]

Kevin I have 8 Bertrams 4 were bought from a woman who's Father had bought from the store New. A Billard at grade 175 was in the group of 4 down to 125, she wanted 600$, got her down to 400$, I wanted that piece of History. Gave 2 lower grades to 2 of my best pipe friends they were poker's below 50 grade, don't let the grade fool you they are all good smokers.

 

[ftrplt]

During my last two college years ('66-'68) I dated a young lady who lived just outside DC plus my college roommate lived in Silver Spring. Went downtown to Bertram's and Georgetown Tobacco on many occasions. I own a bunch of Bertram pipes; some bought in the '60's and some later online. All great smokers made from fine Algerian briar IIRC! What I really liked about Bertram's were their tobaccos. Darn good Latweed blends at incredibly inexpensive prices!!!! My last visits were in 1968 just before I went to work for my "Uncle Sam!!" Shortly thereafter came the awful riots and Bertram's was no more  I continue to get a kick out of Chris Keene's pipepages with its Bertram catalogue. Brings back a lot of fond memories. FTRPLT

 

[cajun]

[/img] Top Billard is 175, Lower right are 2 150s, Poker is 125.

 

[ftrplt]

Cajun,

I have a bent just like the one in the lower right-hand corner of your pic. Yours has nicer grain than mine!!! Grand smoking pipe!! :cheers: FTRPLT