| Archive for Dr. Grabow Pipes "America's One and Only" |
| BWThomas |
What Makes it A Lark?
I have only one Lark, its a small carved bent. I'm showing it here with two other pipes of the same size, but one is stamped "DUKE" and the other just "Dr.Grabow". Is it the wide band that makes it a Lark? I threw in the full sized Golden Duke for a size comparison.[/img] |
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| ozark southpaw |
This is one for Ted and DRB or Mac. All I know is that the Lark and plain Dukes are the bottom line for Grabow. They smoke just fine in my experience, but the briar quality was not that good. Not all Lark had that band,none that I have have it. | ||||||
| LokoMac8 |
Well, they are smaller pipes for one. Don't have my notes handy for the rest of the explantion, but what OS says kinda hits on it. They were making maximum use of briar and getting rid of stummels too small to do anything else with. Actually, there were other uses slightly before firewood, and I guess that included BUCKOS, VIKING bowls and CIGAR and CIGARETTE HOLDERS among other things (if OS worked there there, the dust wouldn't even have escaped unless it was in product form!). They are still nice smoking little pipes and travel well, especially if you need to just slip one in a shirt pocket or coat pocket for a quick smoke when you get the chance, but don't want to look like your "pack'n". --RJ-- P.S. I don't know if you have visited the website (www.geocities.com/lokomac8), but somewhere in that jumbled mess I believe you can find some of the info TED gave me pertaining to the LARKs, little DUKEs, etc. |
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| BWThomas |
Actually, your site is how I found this forum...you see, my grandfather was a locomotive engineer on the now defunct Montour RR outside of Pittsburgh, PA from the late 40s until he retired in '84. I was doing some research on RR history, followed a link that lead to your site and found your Grabow info...small world... I'll go back and take another look for the little Duke info, maybe finish up the RR stuff too! |
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| drbridges |
For quite a spell (1964-1984+) the petite LARK & DUKE were made in Livorno, Italy. They appear most often in the small DG shapes, and Otto Braun sometimes got imaginative and seems to have improvised some shapes. Some of the petite RIVIERA were also made by Braun's So. La. R.E.S. Spa of Livorno.
ted told a good story about Otto. Use the DGCF search feature for it. |
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| ted |
BW, If you still have questions about Duke and Lark after reading RJ's site, just ask and I'll try to help. I seem to always remember more "stuff" as I go along. It has been 19 years since my direct involvement with Grabow ended, so I remember as I can.....ted | ||||||
| BWThomas |
Thanks ted. I guess my biggest question is why there are little Dukes. Is the Lark still being produced, or has that named line been discontinued? This bent Lark is one of my older pipes, bought it at a Winn-Dixie in Lee County in the early 90s. The other two small bents were purchased at CVS 5 to 7 years ago. What was it that dictated the use of the wide band as shown on my Lark? This sudden involvement on this forum is causing me to smoke more...I will most likely be buying more pipes. |
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| Terry292 |
Money, fun, pipes...you can never have enough. 
Terry |
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| drbridges |
Sometimes the briar shank required more trimming than the shape permitted, so a metal band was added to make the pipe the correct the shape configuration. I believe this may have begun with the REGAL pipe, but it proved popular with some customers, and DG produced a lot of banded versions of their pipes. It may have started as a practical solution, but became a desired accessory. Why do some ball point pens have silver metal bands, while other pens don't? |
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| ted |
That's a great answer Dr.B. Sometimes the briar block(still can't spell ebischon) will be cut in Europe so that there is not enough wood for a standard shank length. The band is added to make the pipe look "balanced" The banding allowed Grabow to use stummels (can spell that) that were too short for any lines...Regal for example....Many Grabow lines had no banding at all and were always full length briar shanks. Basically, BW, the way the briar was sawed in Europe determined whether or not a band was added to any Grabow pipe...ted |
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| ted |
BW, I'm going to do a bit of an epistle on Lark and Duke. I may remember stuff in this one that had been forgotten.
I'm sitting on my deck (a few of RJ's last pictures show the view) in a recliner, with the dog on the end (RJ, he's calm...musta' liked Texas legs), with a Grabow 07 sandblast freehand full of baccer', so here goes. Most of the pipe makers pre 1964 made small pipes. Some even called them "southern assortment" because there was a perception that southerners liked small pipes. Grabow compensated for this by including 2 to 4 small pipes per dozen. These small pipes were the 70 shape series..72, 73, 74, 75, etc. But Grabow went a step further by having an even smaller pipe called the "bantam". Lark and Duke were these bantam shapes. The 50 series..52-billiard, 53 dublin, 54-pear, 57-bent, etc. Duke and Lark were these bantam shapes/sizes. The Duke was always the #1 seller and the Lark was always top 5. In 1964 the first Surgeon General's report on smoking was published and Grabow could barely keep up with the demand for pipes. We had 444 employees (compared to 25 today). Grabow had to find a supplier outside the country for part of their production. Otto Braun was a German POW, captured early in the war and sent to the Winston Salem POW camp. He made Camels for our soldiers. He also met the Lavietes clan who made pipes in Sparta. Otto had gone home to Italy and had made connections with the briarwood suppliers in Italy and Greece, and became a "broker/partner". Grabow needed someone to make pipes and Otto found, bought, or created, a pipe making operation in Livorno, Italy called So. La. R.E.S. Solares was the answer to the problem Grabow had and so Solares started making Duke and Lark. They also made a few Riviera (the cheapest non-filtered pipe). The quality was so bad that the Riviera production was discontinued pretty quickly. So, from about 1965 the Duke and Lark were made in Italy. Otto's factory "took some liberties" with the traditional Grabow shapes and made a few "strange" things. They despised to throw anything away, so if it could be made into a pipe it became a Duke or Lark. In the late 70's , as the Grabow production began to decline, we took back the production of the Lark. In the mid 80's as production declined further, we took back the Duke production. If yours Lark are stamped "Italy" they were made in a 10 year period from 65' till 75'. Otherwise they were probably pre-65', or post 75'. We had trouble with the dock workers in the ports we used. They would steal a bunch of pipes destined for Sparta Pipes. We started stamping "Sparta Snake Company" on the cartons and pilferage was almost cut out. Wood for these small pipes was almost free. Up until the time we started making Duke and Lark, the suppliers had no place to sell these small blocks. They burned it in their furnaces to heat the buildings. When Greek Extra wood was $600 a bag for 5 gross/bag, we bought the CM (small wood) for $100/ bag for 7 gross/bag. Because we took the small wood (their trash) they sold the bigger sizes to us at a reduced price. Otto's son Ulriki Ermanno Braun(named after the last German soldier killed in WWII) took over at his fathers death and is a great friend. He took my daughter when she was 12 for a summer on Elba Island with his sons Christian and Alexander and several of their friends. He was also our contact for briarwood in the region. I was fortunate. I got to make one buying trip to Europe with Otto and Uli, and then got to make one with Uli alone. Otto (and Uli) spoke English, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Swiss, Albanian, and enough Arabic to get by. Nice company in Europe. Our price for the Duke and Lark from Solares was $9.60/dozen. For ages our retail was $1.95. At $1.95 we got $10.80/dozen. Not much profit, considering we still had to inspect all of them. Rejects were sold to S & M sales company in Chattanooga TN. I still see a few of them around. OK, I've gone through two bowls, and need a third. Gonna' quit now. This may bring up a bunch more questions. If so, just ask.....ted |
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| BWThomas |
This is a great story ted. And there are so many more that I've been finding on this forum. Thanks for sharing such a wealth of information. | ||||||
| drbridges |
Sweet gems like those just drip from ted like honeydew. It's amazing, simply amazing. | ||||||
| Irishlefty |
Love reading Ted's remembered gems. I wish there were more folks who worked in the pipe industry that would share - not just information but the real story of the real people who made these gems we love to smoke. | ||||||
| LokoMac8 |
Verily brings tears to my eyes. Not so much the story of the DUKE and LARK, but thinking of you sitting on your deck, in the cool, with your dog at your feet, smoking that freehand with the mountains looking over you. Sniff, sniff . . . You know, I hope someone is archiving all this stuff, especially TED's stories! Heaven forbid if anything should happen to these things or thos Forum. I have saved a few to the hard drive, but I hope that others are, too! We don't want to lose these priceless treasures!!! --RJ-- |
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| BWThomas |
That same thought had crossed my mind the other day after I read one of ted's posts. So on Monday, the 13th of July, I backed up the entire forum. It was then 22,556 files, 1.17 GB of data. This also includes every picture included in posts. I'll continue to do this on a weekly basis ...just in case. |
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| ted |
BW, Now that makes me happy. As I have said several times, I wanted to do something as a remembrance of the Grabow employees and after seeing Rj's site and this Forum everything just felt right.
Now I know that some of the names and stories will last beyond those employees and me. Thank you for taking the time. As for RJ's site. Anyone who would ,on his own, do that much research and work deserves any help I can give....and perhaps "professional" help,,,ted |
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| BWThomas |
Happy to make you happy ted. BW |
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| ozark southpaw |
Barry,thats great!! Tell me-just curious-how the heck did you back up the entire forum? WOW! | ||||||
| BWThomas |
http://www.httrack.com/ |
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| ozark southpaw |
Ain't that neat!! | ||||||
| ted |
I kinda feel like a caveman who has just been introduced to writing....DUH.....That don't hardly express how inadequate I feel....Anyway....ted | ||||||
| BWThomas |
Why is that ted?? |
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| ted |
Computile Disfunction....ted |
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| ozark southpaw |
Computers
Don't feel bad Ted! You ain't alone!! |
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| LokoMac8 |
WOWEE!!!! That is FANTASTIC!!! --RJ-- |
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