The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[OC Richard]

An update about the big-mount Lawries I bought a while back.

I suppose it's a matter of mixed "joys and dangers" because when I bought them I knew they had a replacement Bass bottom made to match by McCallum.

The replacement wasn't an identical visual match, but most importantly it used McCallum's standard bore spec which is narrower than Lawrie ever would have used.

As usual the answer was Rick Pettigrew at Dunbar. I played the Lawrie drones with various Bass bottoms I have. The best was the one from my 1940s Starcks, which I sent to Dunbar, along with one of the Lawrie Tenor bottoms so Rick could copy the visuals.

I just got the result, which looks and plays great.

[OC Richard]

Here's one of those things where the unknowledgeable Ebay seller lists the entire pipe as being by the maker's mark stamped on one of the chanters that's in the box with the pipes. Oftentimes the stamped chanter is a Practice Chanter which to us pipers is obviously not part of the pipes.

In this case it's a Pipe Chanter by Sinclair. The seller says the pipes themselves are unmarked but I wonder. Sellers often don't look in the Cord Guides where most modern pipes are stamped.

In any case the narrow catalin at the tops of the drone bells suggest Gillanders (Bob Gillanders/Gillanders & McLeod/McLeod Forfar) while the fat chunky projecting mounts are a tad like Grainger & Campbell. Either way clearly not a Sinclair set.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/31396034405...MAAOSwIMJiW1WY

[OC Richard]

This set is being bid on, under $300 still.

It appears to be a quality Scottish-made set. I've asked the seller to peek under the cords at the Cord Guides to see if there's a maker's stamp there.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/29492517486...temCondition=4

[OC Richard]

This obviously Pakistani bagpipe has got 19 bids! Stop the madness.

The first telltale things are the bag-cover and the cords (note the rubber O-rings). But it could be a legit set with the Pakistani dressings, right?

I don't think I've ever come across that; it's extremely unlikely. Because in Pakistan they do make quite nice cords and bag-covers and the ones they sell separately are like that. The wonky sort seen on this Ebay set are the kind that come on the cheapest Pakistani pipes.

So for a legit pipe to have the cheapest sort of Pakistani dressings would mean shifting them from a cheap Pakistani set.

Much more common is the other way round: Pakistani pipes which have been dressed in higher-quality things.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25549524229...ndition=4%7C10

[JPS]

This obviously Pakistani bagpipe has got 19 bids! Stop the madness.

The first telltale things are the bag-cover and the cords (note the rubber O-rings). But it could be a legit set with the Pakistani dressings, right?

I don't think I've ever come across that; it's extremely unlikely. Because in Pakistan they do make quite nice cords and bag-covers and the ones they sell separately are like that. The wonky sort seen on this Ebay set are the kind that come on the cheapest Pakistani pipes.

So for a legit pipe to have the cheapest sort of Pakistani dressings would mean shifting them from a cheap Pakistani set.

Much more common is the other way round: Pakistani pipes which have been dressed in higher-quality things.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25549524229...ndition=4%7C10

Are you certain? In the third picture, I could swear I can make out "Dunbar" in the cord guide.

[DCampbell16B]

I also do see Dunbar. And the mouthpiece looks like some variation of an Airstream. Concur on the cords though.

[imrichmond]

If these are Pakistani, they would be the first set of Pakistani polypenco pipes I've ever seen. The Pakistani makers just don't use polypenco. Even Hakam Din, arguably the best of the Pakistani makers, uses only African blackwood (poorly aged) and sheesham (which the Pakistanis misleadingly call rosewood). This is clearly a set of Dunbar polypenco pipes. Aside from the Dunbar stamp in the tenor cord guide, the single scored line in place of combing below the shoulder on the drones is virtually a guarantee that these are Dunbars. This set is identical to the set of imitation mounted polys shown on Dunbar's website. The mouthpiece is an Airstream, but the blowpipe is Dunbar. If someone can get this set for around $400-500 US, it will be a real bargain. Used sets of Dunbar polys are typically going for $750-900 US.

Why the seller would have dressed these pipes up with Pakistani cords and what could well be a Pakistani bag cover is anybody's guess, but I have seen this done with a couple of other sets of pipes in recent years. A few years ago, I purchased on behalf of a band mate a lovely set of 1970s Gillanders & McLeod that the seller, a piper in Germany, had fitted with Pakistani cords and bag cover for the posted photos.