Billie W. Taylor II, Ph.D.
Collection

Pot Venturi (Cartouche)

Black

pipe photo
The value of pipe #670 is n/a points.

Carlos Perez (abc-more-4-u) auctioned this pipe. The listing described the imprint as Venturi, but the photo clearly showed that it had a bowl liner. I couldn't resist finding out just what this beast was. On careful examination, it is still not easily explained. There is a bowl liner in a stummel exactly the size of a the pipe, not a Venturi. The imprint is in an oval (which is not the standard for Venturi) and the font is smaller than on any other Venturi I have seen. Plainly visible just below the "t" and the oval is the tail of the logo "p" that is imprinted on all the pipe. Perhaps a the pipe was returned to the factory for reworking and over-stamped for some reason. It has been professionally cleaned up and a replacement mouthpiece (which is a bit longer than an original) installed. It may be that a skilled refurbisher has worked it over, although I can't imagine why he would go to the trouble to create that stamp. Some of each? Another explanation I haven't thought of? Whatever the case, I am keeping it as an oddity until (maybe some day) more information and/or more examples come my way. I have not assigned a point value to these pipes until we have more information.