What is the Vintages Project?
The purpose of the Vintages Project is to serve as a home for scholarship dedicated to research into the pioneers of classic pipes and vintage pipe tobaccos. With the passage of time invaluable information is lost as individuals die and memories fade. We hope that this website will serve as a clearinghouse for information that might otherwise be lost, and as a resource to interested collectors and historians of the hobby.
What is the first project publication?
The first publication is a document addressing the dating of tobacco tins produced by Sobranie under both its own label and under the Sullivan Powell brand. Note that the scope of this document is strictly limited to a discussion of the various pipe tobacco blends produced by Sobranie, development of an overall rubric for dating tins, and source data which can be used when employing that rubric. While intended as an appendix to a future publication on the history of the Sobranie company and the men who ran it, this document is meant to stand alone as an aid to the dating of Sobranie tins.
To get a copy of the publication, click this link or the appendix cover at right.
How can you participate?
Readers can participate in three ways. First, reconstructing the past is a challenge, and all too often what we know is dwarfed by what remains unknown. Any reader aware of errors of omission or commission in any Vintages Project publication is asked to please contact us with comments or corrections. Second, the number of venues where articles of this kind can be published and widely read is limited; readers are welcome to submit articles on vintage tobaccos or classic pipe manufacturers for possible publication here. Finally, the value and quality of this information will grow the more interested parties are aware that it exists. We encourage you to share this site with fellow pipe enthusiasts with a taste for history.
What’s new?
Just uploaded to the Vintages Project is an article that settles once and for all the dates, details, and facts of the Barling transition: “How Many Angels: Another look at the Barling Transition.” Business history scholar Jon Guss reveals at long last who the mysterious Nichols was and how the so-called Nichols numbers came to be called by that name.
The article will begin downloading immediatly.
You’ll find here an article by the preeminent American antiquarian in our hobby, Ben Rapaport. Anyone interested in antique pipes, antique meerschaums, or tobacciana in general knows his work. Ben has been kind enough to share his latest article with the Vintages Project. It is an edited transcription of a rare oral history recalling noted meerschaum carver Gustav Fischer and his son. The interview was conducted with Gustav Senior’s daughter-in-law, Anna, a few years before her death. In addition to highlights from this fascinating interview, Ben provides thoughtful analysis and context through an introduction and conclusion.
To get a copy of the Gustav Fischer publication, click this link or the appendix cover at right.
The second article was written by me, and explores systematic errors in foundation dating for 19th century pipe and pipe tobacco companies. “Foundation dating” is just shorthand for trying to determine when a particular business was actually established. This article is a bit of a departure from most of what I do. Rather than a granular drill-down into the history of a specific company, it takes an inter-disciplinary approach looking for patterns across the industry. After briefly reviewing five case studies (Kapp & Peterson, Charatan, Marcovitch, John Cotton, and Philip Morris) which illustrate specific and sometimes surprising common misconceptions in foundation dating, the essay discusses their possible source.
To get a copy of the Foundation Dating publication, click this link or the cover at right.
What’s coming?
Still to come are the promised articles about William Demuth and the company he built, and the history of the House of Sobranie.
The Demuth article will follow the career of William Demuth, a German immigrant who came to New York in the early 1850’s. Over the course of a long career he and his half-brother Leopold grew their company (WDC) into the largest pipe manufacturer in the world, producing some 10 million pipes annually at its peak.
The Sobranie article will tell the story of Albert Weinberg, his nephews Isaiah and David Redstone, and the company they built. It will trace the Weinbergs and Redstones from their origins outside Odessa to the establishment of the Sobranie company in London in 1879. The development of the business over the next century will be described, as will the eventual sale to Gallaher and its aftermath.
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