Dating Charatan Pipes

Dating Charatan pipes proceeds indirectly, since the Charatan brand never used a year code: a pipe is placed in a period by looking at the traces successive changes of ownership left on the shank and mouthpiece. These traces alone do not give a single year, but stacked together they let most pipes settle into a range of a few years.

The method's one requirement is that the mouthpiece be original; a later-fitted mouthpiece removes one of the two most decisive clues at once, leaving only the shank wording.

Shank Wording and Shape Code

The number of lines struck on the shank is the most practical starting point for placing a period. Up to the 1960s, "CHARATAN'S MAKE LONDON ENGLAND" reads in two lines, and the shape code consists only of digits. Letters added to that code mark the following period: a DC suffix shows the pipe left the factory with a Double Comfort mouthpiece, an X suffix shows it left with a saddle mouthpiece without Double Comfort. If either of these letters is in the code, the pipe dates to after 1960.

The "MADE BY HAND" stamp is reported to have first been struck in 1958, though some records push this a few years earlier or later. In the mid-1960s this wording moved to a three-line arrangement, and shortly after changed from block capitals to a script character. The £ sign seen inside a circle on the shank, the Lane stamp, is not on its own proof of ownership; records say this same stamp was also struck on pipes shipped in years when Lane was still only the American importer. Once production moved to France, wording foregrounding London disappears and is replaced by "CHARATAN of London"; some examples also show a "France" mark on the shank or mouthpiece.