Watch Out on eBay

[NeverBend]

I always look at Barling's. If you want to waste a couple of days ask me why (careful, I give tests afterwards!).

This is a Barling currently selling on eBay with a replacement stem. To be precise, it’s a Canadian because they have taper stems (Lumberman are saddle).

Barling Canadian

Side view of the pipe that has nice proportions but a distinctly non-Barling shaped mouthpiece.


The density of the stain is lighter at the stem join and that’s usually an indication of replaced bit but this isn’t badly done and the stem, though ordinary and not of the quality of the original Barling stem, appears to be serviceable.

This is the problem that I wanted to demonstrate. Note that the draught hole bore extended into the opposite side of the bowl! This is a handmade bowl but over time, after Barling was sold, there were increasing quality issues such as this.

If one were to buy this pipe they would need to ‘plug’ the hole on the opposite wall with pipe mud.




In this picture you can see that they draught hole coming out of the shank is right at the bottom and well centered and that the over-extended boring that hit the opposite wall hasn't created a channel (that would be a more difficult and tenuous repair).


I’d like to see the bottom of the bowl but this picture of the front (where the extended bore is) shows no discoloration (not a hotspot or burning out).

This is a handmade Barling bowl and these are the exceptional pipes from the post Family Era (post transition) and some are great smokers. Briar looks like it was a quality piece and the shaping is good if not quite the same as a Family Era Barling but it’s fortunate that the seller included these photos that seems to clarify what the problem is. If it were an original stem I’d be all over it.