Dating Loewe Pipes

Dating a Loewe pipe is not a matter of reading a year off a stamp, but of layering several clues to narrow things down to a range. The firm never, at any point, struck a mark that directly gave the production year.

What remains are the layout of the shank stamps, whether or not a series name is present, the switch on the underside from a shape name to a three-digit number, and, on silver-banded examples, the assay mark. The brand's general history is covered in the Loewe & Co. entry.

Stamp Layout

The classic arrangement is spread across three surfaces: on the left side, "L&Co." within an oval frame; on the right side, "Loewe London W."; and on the underside, the shape name. On pipes destined for export in particular, a circled "Made in England" mark is also added to the underside. This layout stayed remarkably unchanged for decades, which is precisely what makes dating so difficult.

The distinguishing layer is the second line on the left side. On early pipes, the space beneath the oval logo is blank; the firm had not yet adopted a named quality grade in those years. With the addition of the names Centurion, Original, and Old English, a two-line stamp forms on the left side. Accounts differ on the year these names were introduced: one account gives 1955, while another, based on stamp archives, gives 1956 to 1964. Where the two sources agree is that pipes dated before 1920 carry no series stamp at all. The names Standard, Spigot, and Mounted were added to the list later; a pipe bearing one of these names dates from the later period.

The upper grades fall outside this layout. The Extra Grain, Straight Grain, and Special Grain stamps take the place of the shape name on the underside; below them only the circled origin mark remains. According to one account these three names rank in that order from top to bottom, but because these grades were produced in very small numbers, the ranking has not been confirmed by independent records.