Astleys of Jermyn Street opened their prestigious shop way back in 1860 as an outlet for their superb manufacturing of smoking pipes for British royalty and London gentry alike. At that time they were literally just down the road from the Charatans shop, and for years they competed to produce a better standard of pipe. Whilst Charatan changed hands and was sold to Lane in the U.S., Astleys continued with his High Grade pipe sales by supplying some of the best examples of British manufacturing to pipe connoisseurs around the world! Astley of Jermyn Street was an extremely exclusive and famous shop and many pipe smokers made visiting the shop a must when arriving in London, myself included I must say! The shop always commanded extremely high prices for his much sought after specimens! Astley were renowned for selecting only the highest grade finish of briar pipes. This Freehand Pot Sitter briar pipe was made for the Astley Pipe Company by William Ashton Taylor of the Ashton Pipe Company specifically for the Astley shop in Jermyn Street. It has been carved from a piece of clean straight grain Grecian briar. It was meticulously sandblasted and finished in a transparent two tone tan staining to the bowl and shank. The rim has been slightly bevelled. The tobacco chamber is in perfect condition with only a fraction of a mm of even carbon. The pipe has a vulcanite mouthpiece bearing the crisp and well defined white A logo and is in as good condition as the day it was fitted. The nomenclature on the base of the shank reads ASTLEYS and underneath 109, JERMYN ST. LONDON.

LENGTH: 5 ¾”

HEIGHT: 1 ½”

OUTER TOBACCO CHAMBER: Almost 1 9/10th”

INNER TOBACCO CHAMBER: Almost 9/10th”

!!!FOR MORE HIGH GRADE PIPES PLEASE SEE OUR OTHER AUCTION PAGES OR TO SEE OTHER HIGH GRADE JAMES UPSHALL AND TILSHEAD PIPES GO TO OUR JAMES UPSHALL TRADE WEB SITE ......................................