The shank carries one stamp: HOCKEY ENGLISH FINISH. No shape number, no country mark, no date - just a name and a finish line, and that is what this pipe brings to the bench.

This is an estate pipe stamped HOCKEY ENGLISH FINISH, a smooth-finished apple pot with a straight pencil shank and a long tapered vulcanite stem cut to a fishtail bit. No filter system is fitted; the bore runs open from bowl to button, the simplest and most direct draft a pipe can offer.

The apple shape sits among the oldest bowl families in English pipe making: a rounded bowl wall that swells out from a narrower base and curves back in toward the rim, giving a fuller visual mass than a billiard without the straight sides. The pot variant shortens that curve and widens the chamber floor, so the bowl reads as squat and full-bodied rather than tall. Paired here with a pencil shank - a shank kept slender and of even diameter along its whole length, without the step or taper of a saddle or military mount - the profile stays lean where many apple pots run heavy, and the eye travels from the rounded bowl straight down a narrow line of wood to the stem.

The stem itself is vulcanite, long and hand-tapered from a wide shank face down to a slim button, finished with a fishtail slot: a bit that splits into two flared tines at the tip rather than closing to a single round hole. A fishtail bit spreads smoke across a wider portion of the tongue and tends to feel less concentrated in the mouth than a narrow army-style opening, and it is a cut long associated with English-market pipes generally, without tying the shape to any particular maker.

The briar is finished smooth, not blasted or rusticated, and carries a stain over the wood surface. A smooth finish leaves the surface bare to stain and wax rather than texturing it, so any figure in the grain would ordinarily show through the coat rather than being hidden under a rusticated or sandblasted surface.

Condition: graded good, pre-smoked. The rim shows darkening from use. Faint scratches are present in the stain across the briar. No cracks, fills, or repairs are noted.

THE MARKS
- Stamped HOCKEY ENGLISH FINISH on the shank

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 160mm (6.4") - bowl height 32mm (1.3") - bowl width 37mm (1.5") - bowl (chamber) depth 25mm (1.0") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 0.9 oz

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.

SKU: 402