Garfinkel: Washington's Pipe and Tobacco Shop

Garfinkel, in full A. Garfinkel Inc., was a tobacconist's shop in Washington that sold pipes, pipe tobacco, and cigars for roughly thirty years. It was not a workshop carving pipes on its own bench; it was an importer-retailer that selected what others produced and brought it to market under its own name.

The reason the community still remembers the name lies in this very selectivity: blends sold under the shop's label continue to be mentioned in collectors' records long after the business closed.

The Blends Behind the Label

Tobaccos carrying the Garfinkel name were not made at a facility belonging to the shop but in England; sources point to the firms Robert McConnell and Sobranie. The products were not simply a stock blend relabeled — they were prepared to recipes the shop set. The numbered "Orient Express" series and "Marlowe" are the most often mentioned of these; both are mixtures built predominantly on Oriental tobacco. Custom blending for individual customers is also reported to have been done alongside these, with recipes Arnold Garfinkel brought from Europe occasionally used for the purpose.

The same logic applied on the pipe side. Bodies stamped "A. Garfinkel, Wash D.C." were made outside and sold under the shop's name. In surviving examples the stamp sometimes states the source of the briar ("Algerian Briar"), sometimes says only "Imported Briar"; many pieces carry wording pointing to French manufacture. Because the stamps do not name a specific factory, the true maker of these pipes cannot be established with certainty in most examples.