Help With Il Ceppo Markings

[Goose55]

I have this estate il Ceppo coming and I am wondering about the markings, as to grading. What does the large "G" mean? I did a little research online, and it was confusing. I also looked in the library here but could not find anything.

[DepartedLight]

bump. good schtuff, goose man

[Goose55]

Il Ceppo collectors among us, can you shed some light on the markings of that pipe? There is no triangle anywhere, with a number.

[sweetandsour]

I was always told the big "G" could stand for God, George, or geometry.

[Goose55]

I was always told the big "G" could stand for God, George, or geometry.

Maybe, but not in Il Ceppo pipes

[Goose55]

No one with knowledge of Il Ceppo grading markings among us?

[Rusty]

No one with knowledge of Il Ceppo grading markings among us?

Aren't we demanding tonight. Not all of us are on all the time. You should ask who owns or owned Il Ceppos or maybe sold them in retail. Those with larger, rambling, collections are more likely to have smaller audience brands like Il Ceppo. I certainly enjoy mine. They market both classic shaped pipes and other somewhat freehand shapes that are interesting. Mine are very good smokers.

That appears to be a so called first period Il Ceppo. First period pipes are older ie from late 70's through to the mid 90's or so. Very small audience at the time. I don't have any that are that old because I bought mine brand new well after 2000 and they were not distributed in Canada. The stamping looks a little different on the modern ones. But you can guess at some of it on yours. The G (which is the letter in the range of A-H that precedes the digits) probably is indicating a rusticated pipe. Why? It's closer to H than it is to A and the pipe is obviously rusticated. A straight grain would be one of A-D or E and there are examples on the web. I don't know how to interpret the digits that follow. They don't obviously look like a date encoding. They may encode shape and/or other things (eg market). The modern designation is a circled 9 for the same grade and they lack the series of digits preceded by a letter. There should also be a number within a triangle. It's called a group number within the first period pipes. Don't sweat the confusion. Most people are confused by Il Ceppos strange stamping. It's part of the charm. The brand has a much more limited audience than some others. They weren't always consistent with their stamping. It's not hard to find pipes with some of the stamping missing, for example.

Bob was working in the retail end of the biz at the tail end of the first period so he may have some more information. Also RD Field was the importer and he is another good source and he does respond to emails.

[Sir Moose]

You could try contacting this guy who claims to have known Mario Lubinski, the distributor for Il Ceppo pipes in Italy, for over 30 years. I don't know if he'd be willing to give you any insight or not, but it would only cost you a few keystrokes to find out.

[Cleon]

I was going to say what Rusty basically said. The letter indicates grade. The lower in the alphabet, the higher the grade. The higher in the alphabet, the lower the grade. Your pipe is rusticated because it didn't have the bones to make a higher grade, so they rusticate it, grade it accordingly, and then they can sell it at a reasonable price point.

[Goose55]

Thanks Rusty, Moose, and Cleon.

[Goose55]

I was going to say what Rusty basically said. The letter indicates grade. The lower in the alphabet, the higher the grade. The higher in the alphabet, the lower the grade. Your pipe is rusticated because it didn't have the bones to make a higher grade, so they rusticate it, grade it accordingly, and then they can sell it at a reasonable price point.

But this other Il Ceppo I have, a "Freeline Straight Grain," also has a large "G" to the left of the numbers (just as the rusticated one above), and it does not appear to be a low grade pipe. Does it?.....

[UncleBob]

The "G", as was told to me (and therefore suspect because not all pipe importers really know), means that it was made by Giorgio Imperatori. Supposedly the stock on hand was marked with a "G" when Giorgio retired and when Franco took over. Now, I never vetted this lore as Il Ceppo never was a priority for us at JFH.

[Rusty]

I was going to say what Rusty basically said. The letter indicates grade. The lower in the alphabet, the higher the grade. The higher in the alphabet, the lower the grade. Your pipe is rusticated because it didn't have the bones to make a higher grade, so they rusticate it, grade it accordingly, and then they can sell it at a reasonable price point.

But this other Il Ceppo I have, a "Freeline Straight Grain," also has a large "G" to the left of the numbers (just as the rusticated one above), and it does not appear to be a low grade pipe. Does it?.....

Looks like an "E" to me. And this coupled with Bob's story tells us just how very critical the stamping is to the proper operation of the pipe. So much so that they didn't document it. And this is not unusual.
LOL!
I bought Il Ceppo's brand new and the enclosed info sheet did not explain any of this. But mine did not have the obscure "G" so maybe that's appropriate. Who knows what happened to Georgio.

Like many of us you seem to have little difficulty recognizing the grade of the pipe unaided by stamping hints. If you had bought it new with packaging etc and paid the full fare you would have no doubt about the grade. But do not despair. There are puzzles on our pipes for our amusement, myth-making, and sometimes, mysteriously, in service of a warranty. You can imagine John Loring some 40 or 50 years ago discovering that nobody really understood Dunhill pipe stamping and he made it his ambition to rectify that. He succeeded. It is understood today. You can do likewise. There are still puzzles. And you know there is no help. The stamping isn't always intended for the consumer.

[Goose55]

Looks like an "E" to me.

As I look at it with a magnifying glass, it may well be a "B." The font that was used in the stamping isn't helpful.

When the rusticated version arrives, I will do a close comparison, between their "G" and "B.".I have a macro lens also headed my way that will help.

[Rusty]

Looks like an "E" to me.

As I look at it with a magnifying glass, it may well be a "B." The font that was used in the stamping isn't helpful.

When the rusticated version arrives, I will do a close comparison, between their "G" and "B.".I have a macro lens also headed my way that will help.

We know with certainty that they're not all G's, despite Bob's interesting story. There are pics on the web of other letters evident in first period pipes and we're told by the denizens of tubes that A-H is possible. It looks reasonable. What we're missing is an explanation of the letters from Il Ceppo or a distributor etc. That is your homework.

My personal preference is that the G is an index-free Einstein tensor. Somehow quite a good fit for a pipe. This is all about geometry.

It's also interesting to look at stamping and symbols in trademarks on pipes. The richest and most complex seems to be associated with marketing companies (ie they're selling you a lifestyle) vs. technical / product companies that are selling you a product. I would have guessed that Il Ceppo was a product company. But that first period stamping could only have come from a committee.

The clear finished one shown is again a first period Il Ceppo.

I think it's interesting that you're finding Il Ceppo pipes, and older ones esp. I'm pretty sure that I mentioned them. They are one maker in a region of pipe makers most of whom have a related corporate genealogy. So they are a community. Look up the other brands that are from Pesaro. It may broaden your search to add some other brands. The other well know area is Milan / Como. Can you guess who this includes? There is a world of pipes in Italy.

I tripped over an interesting option with google maps that actually showed the locations of all the pipe makers with businesses in Italy. I can't even guess how many hours I burned up on that. Seeing them physically, geographically, is quite a revelation & makes one revisit pics of the pipes to see how they relate. Aside from the time this is quite economical.