Here are three Linkman's Dr Grabow pipes I got off Ebay for $10 (including shipping).
These are rather old and I would guess that they date from the late 1930's to the early 1940's. The famous spade logo does not appear on these pipes. Instead, they have the Linkman's 'propeller' logo on the top of the stem and the shield logo on the shank of the pipe.
From what I have been able to discover, the Spade logo was first used in 1944. That would suggest that these pipes date from between 1933, when the patent number on them was registered to 1944 when the Spade logo was introduced.
These pipes are filthy! Looks like someone really liked to smoke these, but did little to no cleaning of them. The cake is heavy and there is even cake on the top of the bowl. The stingers are all intact, but very dirty. It is going to take some time to clean these up.
2 comments:
Great idea for a blog. I will be following to see how the Grabows turn out.
Got here searching for history on a set of 6 pipes marked "LINKMAN'S" over Dr. Graybow in script. My pipes look a lot like yours - propeller on the stem, spade on top of 3 pipes only pointing to stem.
Seems to me they are from the mid-40's. The pipes came in a 6' x 6.5' leather zippered folio - inside label says "Dr. GRAYBOW Companion Set." They look well used, but quite clean and in decent smoking shape.
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