Donnelly Underfeed Pipe ... Gone And Definately Forgotten

ghostsofpompeii

Apparently some ideas may seem good at the time to the inventor - but the public isn't all that sold on the idea. Such is the case of the Donnelly Underfeed Pipe. I've located an old magazine ad for the pipe and even discovered the patent information ... but other than that there appears to be no more info on the pipe or whether or not it ever made a dent in the market. What may have seemed like a unique design feature to the inventor Mr. James A Donnelly ... loading the tobacco from the bottom of the pipe ... only appears upside down and awkward. I looked at the sketch and can't for the life of me figure what makes Mr. Donnelly think this was a grand idea and revolutionary new approach to pipe smoking.

Just curious if anyone ever saw, heard of, or might possibly own one of Mr. Donnelly's Underfeed Pipes. 

    

PhilosoPiper

The way that it is advertised seems to me that it was intended to save the doddle in order to get more "bang for your buck". 

ghostsofpompeii

Which explains why the pipe is about as hard to find as a dinosaur bone in my backyard. Although chances are better I'll find a dinosaur bone in my backyard more so than a Donnelly Underfeed Pipe in an antique store near me anytime soon.

PhilosoPiper

Seems like a pipe Sherlock Holmes would have enjoyed. Being as he was in the practice of drying doddle on his mantel.

motie2

@Philosopiper -- You wrote, "Seems like a pipe Sherlock Holmes would have enjoyed."

<<According to the Canon (the 56 short stories and four novels written by Conan Doyle), Holmes only had three pipes- a blackened “disreputable” clay (which he liked to smoke when in a disputatious mood), an oily briar and a cherrywood. By now, you’ve probably noticed a discrepancy here- no Calabash. The gourd Calabash is the pipe most identified with Holmes, with its deep bend, golden color with the whitish meerschaum bowl and chamber and black military stem, but this pipe was never mentioned in any of the stories. It became associated with Holmes because of an American actor named William Gillette (who built Gillette Castle in Connecticut) who chose it so his pipe wouldn’t block his face from the audience, and the smoke would also be out of his line of sight. The Calabash would have been impractical for Holmes to smoke outside of 221B Baker Street as it is a large and unwieldy pipe. >> 

So, maybe; maybe not. As to the dottle, yes, Holmes was a big fan of recycled 'ships' (none fouler) and the strongest plugs and dottles from yesterday's shag. 

Dr. Watson's taste in pipe tobacco was more upmarket, being that he smoked 'Arcadia mixture.'