Department :
METAL STEM & Threaded bowl |
A history nearly as long as the Falcon and as many varieties of bowl. The Viking was initially in dispute over copyright with Falcon and it cost them $20,000 in court. That was the style at the top and in the box. There are several variants, and on my next up date I will attempt to seperate them into early and late models. There are some mystery pipes that seem to belong to this marque, but are unmarked Not every variant takes the same bowl, so this conundrum has to be overcome also Early Viking 16 Mar 1954 US Patent # D171,694 The multi finned Dr Grabow style Viking 12 June 1956 US patent # D177,972 In addition there were patents issued for other projects 177,321 - 177,226 - 177,036 April 1969 Field & Stream advert had the Viking at $2.95 with bowls at $1.50 Dr.Grabow legend Paul W Grabow, "the" Dr Paul E Grabow's grandson has stated that the name became associated with pipes when a Mr Linkman, Racine, Chicago and friend of physician Dr. Grabow asked to 'borrow' the doctor's name when launching a new pipe, reasoning that a Doctor's name attached to the pipe would add to its selling points. Since Dr Paul E Grabow smoked regularly from the free pipes supplied to him and lived to the ripe old age of 97, it must disprove some of the anti smoking propaganda that permeates the news these days |