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All our pipes are individually created by a team
of highly skilled artisans, headed by Mr. Barry Jones, who is
widely regarded as one of the best pipe carvers in the world, with
more than 40 years experience in pipe making.
Mr. Jones learned his skill from the age of 15 in
London and was personally guided by Mr. Charatan of Charatan Pipe
Co., pipe makers to royalty since 1863. For years he was
responsible for creating the majority of the famous Charatan
shapes and the high standard of quality.
In 1978, Barry Jones joined Colonel Kenneth
Barnes, then Charatans' managing director, who started his own
pipe company in Tilshead, Wiltshire, making the Tilshead and James
Upshall premium class pipe, which took it's name from the
Colonel's ancestry, one James Archimedes Upshall, an ardent pipe
smoker, who loved quality and perfection.
Ever since the company has been making hand
turned, straight grained pipes for the smoking connoisseur and has
gone from strength to strength gaining fame and the up most
respect as one of the greatest hand made pipe companies.
Pipe expert, Mr. Richard Carlton Hacker, author of
"The Ultimate Pipe Book" has stated that, "Barry
has an almost uncanny knack of finding the best concentration of
grain. His Upshall pipes are so distinctive you can immediately
spot them in any pipe rack". It's this grain pattern and
quality that collectors prize so highly.
The raw material we use for hand-turning pipes is
specially selected naturally dried plateau Briar from Greece. As
opposed to the kiln dried ebauchons, our briar guarantees
lightweight, and tremendous properties for absorbing heat, as well
as tobacco moisture and ensures a sweet smoke. Plateau blocks of
considerable age, are of added benefit to the real pipe smoker; a
rich mature graining which infrequently result in a perfect
straight grain or birds eye pipe.
Each block of plateau briar is an individual piece
of nature, which has to be treated and worked accordingly. The
turner's art is to transform a well seasoned and naturally dried
block into a flawless pipe, which will give its owner years of
smoking pleasure due to its perfect smoking characteristics and
great beauty.
At James Upshall, no part of the production is
trusted to pre-set machines or copy-fraisers. Each pipe is shaped
on a single flat bed lathe by chisel and the craftsman's artistic
skill. Each James Upshall pipe is the result of perfect briar
quality as well as the skill of the hand-turner, no two pipes are
identical. Nature and man work together to create the optimal
pipe. All models are old English shapes influenced by the
hand-turner's creative mind.
James Upshall give a unique guarantee on each pipe
leaving the workshop. No pipe bearing the name of James Upshall is
marred by fillings and putty. Scarcity of good quality plateau
briar and the time consumed turning by hand, limit our production,
but we will always strive to fulfill the growing demand for
James Upshall, quality and tradition at its best.
As always the James Upshall pipe has been sold in
the most prestigious outlets around the world and has been greatly
appreciated by royalty, lords and celebrities alike. King Hussein
of Jordan, Anwar Sadat, Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner and more recently
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Wagner and Tom Selleck to name but a
few of the famous names who have helped to cement James Upshalls'
reputation as the Rolls Royce of Pipes.
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