House of Westminster cherrywood

For previous posts about this pipe, see here and here. I picked this up today with its new stem. As I had said before, the old stem was in very bad shape and I had never attempted to smoke it; I just cleaned it up nice and took it to the shop for a replacement stem.  So here are some photos I took of it just now.  Click on them for larger versions.

UPDATE:  While I was at the shop, I picked up a tin of 1792 Flake as well, and used it to try out the new pipe.  Very nice.  The big bulk of wood in this pipe makes it smoke quite cool, and it has a low enough center of gravity that I can still grip it in my teeth without using a hand for long enough to type effectively.  This pipe will be one of my regulars.

Revisiting the Westminster: The Alpiner

I had mentioned this pipe back in January, but I recently uncovered information on it that warrants further mention.

"This will be, by far, the oddest looking pipe in your collection."

This is a House of Westminster one-piece cherrywood pipe. House of Westminster imported these pipes from Switzerland. This shape is called the Alpiner, and came in three sizes (2 oz, 3 oz, and 4 oz). This example is the "medium," or 2 ounce.

I found information about this pipe thanks to pipepages.com. If you take a look at this page from their 1939 catalog, you can see that the stem for this pipe is very short and stubby. My pipe did still have the original stem, but it is badly chewed and needs to be replaced. This stem looks too stubby and awkward, to me. However, in order to preserve the original appearance of this pipe, I will request that the new stem match the old one. Who knows, maybe I'll like it. Also, I think a longer stem would make it hard to hold in the teeth. The longer the stem, the greater the leverage.

This pipe sold for 49¢ in 1939, postpaid. Thanks again to Chris' Pipe Pages for this excellent resource.

Dover slant poker

In keeping with the cherrywood thread of the past few days, here is a "cherrywood" that is not a cherrywood. Click for a slightly larger version and you can see the nomenclature.


The classic poker is carved with bottom and top parallel to each other and a straight-sided, round (or tubular) bowl. Here's a little graphic from Pipe Shapes.
The story is that the poker takes it name because poker players could put their pipe down and it would sit on its own while they handled their cards. Pokers may have either a long shank and a short bit, or like most pipes it could have a short shank and a long bit. It doesn't matter. The thing that defines a poker are the parallel, flat top and bottom and the round, straight-sided bowl. It should be able to sit.

The example above was carved in the classic cherrywood shape, although it is made of briar. To prevent confusion, it may also be referred to as a slant poker, which is what I prefer to call it.

This pipe is a Dover, which if I recall correctly is a seconds line of Whitehall, and was made in England. "Seconds," in pipe terms, means that the manufacturer for some reason didn't deem it quite worthy of their main brand name, so they marketed it under a different name. Seconds are normally less expensive and of lesser quality than the main line, however, this doesn't mean they are necessarily inferior pipes. For example, Irish Seconds made by Peterson are very good quality for a seconds line.

This pipe turned up in a lot I purchased several years ago and I immediately decided it was a keeper. It is the only pipe I have from the poker family. It may look a little dingy in this photo, but that's because it has been a while since I gave it a good buff & polish. I did give the stem a quick toothpaste buff to make it more presentable for this photo. It does have one nick on the rim which I have never bothered with because I have never felt the urge to sell it. It is a no-frills, no-nonsense pipe that smokes good and looks good and it is one of my favorite pipes.

Ropp Cherrywood

After yesterday's post on the Westminster cherrywood, I though it would be a good idea to post a more typical example.

The Ropp company of France is well-known in the pipe-smoking world for the production of cherrywood pipes. I think they produce (or produced) nothing else. This example from my collection is more typical of the cherrywood, however, it is not the classic cherrywood shape.

I don't have a picture of a classic cherrywood, but this little gif snagged from Pipe Shapes should suffice. The limb of a cherry tree is cut straight across one end and diagonally on the other. The flat end is hollowed out to form the bowl, while the diagonal end is polished and forms a flat bottom so that most cherrywoods--if their balance is right--are also sitters. This shape may also be referred to as a slant poker. The example from my collection was cut with both ends roughly parallel to each other, and the bottom polished but left rounded so that it is not a sitter.

Here is a picture of my pipe disassembled. You can see the threads cut into the wood of the shank. The shank is also cherrywood, but obviously cut from a smaller limb. The threads of both the bowl and the shank have been reinforced with aluminum to help prevent damage. The stem is made from typical vulcanite.

Since one purpose of the cherrywood design is to preserve the rugged, woody appearance, the bark is left on both the bowl and shank. The nomenclature is typically stamped into the polished smooth bottom of the bowl.

The shape depicted in the small black and white gif above is, as I said, the classic cherrywood shape. In fact, pipes of this shape may be referred to as "cherrywood shape" regardless of the materials they are made of. Although briar is by far the most popular wood for pipe-making, there are other woods that are suitable. Cherrywood is probably the second most common.

This pipe was one of two Ropps that were in a lot I bought several years ago. The other one I refurbished and sold. It was of the classic cherrywood shape and I elected to keep this one because it was different. The buyer of the other pipe was a collector of Ropps, and offered to buy both, but I kept this one so I would have at least one example in my collection.

My only complaint about this pipe is that the bowl volume is very small. It smokes just as well as any pipe should, but the tiny interior bowl can provide only a 15 to 20 minute smoke, tops. So I don't use it very often.