Need help Identifying this pipe
Quicksilver
Newcomer
I bought this pipe at Straus Tobacconist, downtown Cincinnati years ago. The pipe smokes like it is brand new and a friend of mine is looking for one similar. The pipe is around 5.5 in over all with a stem of around 3in. the Bowl has a diameter of 6/8in and 1 in deep.
Can any one help
Can any one help
Comments
Another idea woould be to inquire of Straus.
They've proven helpful in the past, but you need better photos.
http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/index-en.html
And what's that funky knob at the end? I can't screw, unscrew, pull or push it, and I'm not going to apply excessive force unless I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing...
Anyway, HELP!
It appears to be a design predecessor of the Tsuge e-Star system pipe. Similar stummel design and knurled access knob.
That looks very similar to a Kirsten pipe. With a Kirsten, the endcap turns from an open hole to closed (single hole) so that the moisture collected in the barrel/tube stays there when stored in a pocket. Well, the endcaps get stuck with the tobacco juice/condensation/whatever. They are either sealed with a friction fit (old version), or with a rubber o-ring on the newer ones. On my estate Kirstens most were stuck...very stuck, along with the bits. I had to heat the endcap and barrel carefully to unstick them. Cold did not work for me, only heat, and sad to say...quite a bit of heat. Your pipe looks a lot trickier to heat up since it looks like the bowl is not easily removeable.
Cool little pipe.
I can see the tobacco juice ring around the endcap. My Kirstens were real stubborn. Interestingly, lots of estate Kirstens have the endcaps and sometimes the stems all boogered up with pliers. Awhile back, there was someone on eBay with a Kirsten "unsticking" service (for lack of a better term).
Tnx again...
It's stamped "Dri-Cool Briar", with a pipe stamped that almost covers the word "Briar".
Also, it has a hole in the bottom of the bowl that leads to a 1/4" hollow briar tube up into the bowl.
The hole in the bottom of the bowl looks as if it's missing a finish ring insert.
Anyway, any ideas?
I have a Dri-Cool pipe. I looked up the patent number and found that the tube valve is/was activated by heat. The valve is a thermal metal. The pipe I have has a metal bar that flexes with heat and open and closes the hole in the bottom. If I remember correctly, there was at least one other design that did not have the bar, but some other type of valve built into the tube. Yours would be that type by the looks of it. For the life of me I cannot find the patent drawings now? I thought I had them saved somewhere, but I cannot find them. The US Patent #2166172 is printed on the bar of my pipe. Maybe you can have better luck finding the patent drawings, I know they exist.
The idea is that the “valve” arm stays closed until the bowl heats up, then the “valve” arm bends to open the tube to allow cool air to mix with the “too hot” smoke. If the smoke/bowl cools sufficiently, the valve will close again regulating the temperature of the smoke.
As you can probably see, this pipe has not been smoked, so I don’t know if it works as designed or not? Also, there is a small divot cut into the top of the stem. I do not know if this is how it was made, or if there was some kind of colored dot/fill that has fallen out. It does not look like there is any adhesive residue in the divot, so maybe this is the way it was originally?
I will keep looking for the Patent description/drawings that I have seen somewhere in the past.
Yea, The patent drawings I found previously showed a few different designs. One had the bimetal “valve” that was “built-in” to the tube. It looks like maybe that internal bimetal thermo-valve part is what is missing from your pipe? Does the hole go all the way through like the Yello-Bole, or is there something beside tobacco/ash plugging the hole?
Another design had the bimetal valve assembly through the back wall of the pipe bowl into a air passage that intersected the shank airway. Not sure how they drilled that one? I did not look close enough at the drawings. That design looked way to complicated.
I'm hoping one of these days I'll trip across a same system pipe. Until then, I can only speculate... 🤔🤔🤔
“The Duncan Hill Aerosphere smoking system (U.S. patent #4,275,747) utilizes the same principle of physics as the manometer. The Aerosphere, visible as the brass pin on the side of the mouthpiece, brings a scientifically measured amount of air into the stem with each puff. The control of the amount of air and the velocity of the air produces two effects that result in superior smoking pipe performance.”
For more detail: https://rebornpipes.com/tag/duncan-hill-aerosphere-history/