Dunhill Patent Stamps and Dating

Dunhill patent stamps are the marks struck on the shank of a Dunhill pipe that help narrow its production year. On the brand's early pipes, one or two patent numbers sit atop the shank, alongside the brand name and a city line, and from the 1920s onward a small year code as well. Reading these three elements together narrows the production date, in most examples, to a few years, and in favorable cases to a single year.

The Patent Period

What collectors call the "patent period" covers the years during which the habit of stamping a patent number on the shank began and was later dropped; compilations give this range as roughly 1905–1954. Alfred Dunhill's first English patent related to a pipe was filed on 21 November 1904 and granted on 28 September 1905. The document concerns adding a windshield to the bowl, either permanently raised or removable and made of metal or asbestos; the aim was to protect burning tobacco from wind outdoors. Brand history notes that this pipe was developed especially with motorists in mind. Application number 25261 is the basis of the two-line DUNHILL'S over PATENT stamp struck on the shank. These first pipes appeared before Dunhill opened his tobacconist's shop on Duke Street in 1907. It is recounted that the stamp was dropped around 1910, once the brand moved into its own manufacturing and placed DUNHILL over DUKE ST. S.W.; the same records also say the earliest pipes were made of polished Algerian briar and produced in only two shape codes, "T" for billiard and "U" for bulldog.