Pipe Brands
Old Pal
A French pipe brand stamped on the shank with a bird figure with wings spread; the maker cannot be firmly established, though it is linked to Marechal, Ruchon & Cie., the owner of GBD.
Old Pal is a briar pipe brand made in France, known today only through surviving examples passed from hand to hand. Its production period is estimated not from documents but from the form of the stamp; the common view is that the brand belongs to the first half of the 20th century.
The name is thought to have been less a workshop's own signature than one of the trade names a large factory used for retailers. For this reason, what is known about Old Pal comes not from catalogues but from the stamp on the shank.
The Stamp
On Old Pal pipes the brand name is struck on the left face of the shank in a slight arc. Just below the name is a bird figure with wings spread to both sides, and below that the words "Made in France." This bird is the brand's most distinctive mark and the first detail a collector trying to identify the maker looks at. Yet no record has ever surfaced matching the figure to any French firm's corporate emblem; rather than answering the question of identity, the bird keeps it open. Shape numbers are also stamped separately on the shank; surviving examples are mostly straight and slightly bent (bent) billiard shapes. The bodies are worked from briar blocks.
The Question of the Maker
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Source: Pipedia, adapted under the CC BY-SA licence.