Dunhill's Uncommon Shapes: Don, Duke, and Opera

Dunhill's shape repertoire isn't limited to the numbered standard list. In the brand's catalogues and stamps are shapes that never entered the list at all, or appeared for only a few years before disappearing. Among these, the trio that has occupied collectors most is Don, Duke, and Opera; all three look familiar at first glance, but each follows its own rules in the details.

The Fine Line Between Don and Duke

Both shapes are relatives of the poker family: a cylindrical bowl, a flat-sitting base. The distinction knots at the shank. The Don has a real shank, short as it may be, and the mouthpiece sits on it. The Duke has no shank at all: a metal band set into the side face of the bowl does the shank's job, and the mouthpiece attaches directly into that socket. The Duke's mouthpiece is most often two pieces: a thin body with a flared bit at the end; the body is made in some examples of ebonite (vulcanite), in others of bone. This construction lightens the pipe noticeably.

The Duke's bowl leans slightly forward and balances on a flattened heel; the mouthpiece sits right below the bowl's waistline. Records show the shape stamped with the numbers 519, 4144, and 41441, and produced in the Bruyere, Shell, Tanshell, Red Bark, and Root Briar finishes. Its production is said to have begun in the mid-1910s and continued intermittently to the present day. A similar bowl-and-band arrangement turns up under different names at other makers; some shape charts note that Peterson calls the same construction tankard. The entry on the origin of briar pipe shape names gives detail on how shape names shift from one brand to another.