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Vauen ITO 1 is stamped in plain roman letters on the shank of this apple-shaped briar, and the bowl itself is not stained but painted - black and white, across a large apple bowl the note describes as a new model design.
This is a Vauen ITO 1: a smooth, straight apple with a black acrylic fishtail stem and a 9mm filter chamber. No dating stamp appears beyond the model name. Vauen\'s own Pipe-of-the-Year series carries its literal year on the shank; this one does not, so no era is claimed here.
Bowl: briar
Stem: acrylic
Mouthpiece: fishtail
Filter: 9mm
Stamped: \"Vauen ITO 1\"
Vauen\'s factory history begins in Nuremberg in 1848, when Karl Ellenberger and Carl August Ziener opened what is recorded as the first pipe factory in Germany. Gebhard Ott founded his own works in 1866; the two houses merged in 1901 into Vereinigte Pfeifenfabriken Nurnberg (VPFN), managed by Ernst Eckert of the Ott family. In 1909 Adolf Eckert coined the name VAUEN itself, from the V of Vereinigte and the N of Nurnberg - the name stamped on the shank of every pipe since, including this one.
The 1920s brought a white-dot trademark for the German and Austrian market. A legal dispute with Dunhill over that dot settled the matter internationally, and Vauen has since marked export pipes with a light-blue or grey dot rather than white, reserving white for pipes sold in Germany and Austria. A dot on the mouthpiece marks a higher factory grade; the plain VAUEN stamp alone, without a dot, marks the lower grades. No dot is reported on this stem, only the ITO 1 stamp described above.
The 9mm filter chamber in this pipe traces to Vauen\'s own engineering: the firm introduced the Dr. Perl junior activated-carbon 9mm filter in 1934, the first of its kind, and the format is now standard across the great majority of German-market pipes. The firm has stayed in the Eckert family since Adolf Eckert\'s day; Alexander Eckert, fifth generation, has run it since 1982.
THE MARKS
- \"Vauen ITO 1\" stamped on the shank - the only stamping recorded on this pipe
The note describes this as a smooth straight apple - a full, rounded bowl set on a straight shank and straight stem, without the bend some apple-shaped pipes carry. The apple sits apart from the billiard in profile: where a billiard\'s bowl meets the shank along a fairly sharp line, the apple\'s sides curve continuously from rim to shank, giving the bowl a rounder, more compact silhouette even at the 50mm width recorded here. The straight shank and fishtail-slotted acrylic stem suit the pipe equally to hand and clench: the flat fishtail bit sits easily between the teeth, and the straight line of shank and stem holds steady in a rack or a hand.
Where most briar pipes are finished to show grain - stained to let birdseye or flame grain read through, or sandblasted to raise it in relief - this bowl is painted. The note records a black and white treatment across the large apple bowl, part of what it calls a new model design. Paint sits on the surface of the wood rather than sinking into it the way a stain does, which is what lets a maker put a graphic pattern on a bowl rather than relying on the grain underneath. The stem is black acrylic, not vulcanite: it will not sulphur or fade toward green with age and UV exposure the way rubber stems can, and it holds its black finish with ordinary care.
Condition: the seller grades this estate pipe as pre-smoked, in very good to excellent condition overall.
THE MEASUREMENTS
Length: 165.0mm (6.5\")
Bowl height: 47.0mm (1.9\")
Bowl width: 50.0mm (2.0\")
Chamber diameter: 20.0mm (0.8\")
Chamber depth: 40.0mm (1.6\")
Weight: 71.0g (2.5 oz)
Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.
SKU: 414
