Chicken before the egg, or box before the pipe?

Actually, with a little more digging, I found the answer. The 1960s catalogue and the 1970 and 1976 price lists show a Ruff Root "Natural" finish. The 1986 catalogue lists a Ruff Root "Tan" finish. The 1960s catalogue color photo of the "Natural" finish looks the same as the "Tan." It would appear that the family era pipes had a natural Ruff Root finish and the name of he finish was simply changed after the company was sold. The pipe in question would appear to be family era.

As mentioned above, the Eight Dot appeared in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s. These too have the florid script and the patent number, and the presence or absence of a town name will help you date this pipe fairly precisely. Although the Eight Dot remained in the catalogue through the war, it was for all intents and purposes discontinued during W.W.II.



Once Alfred took over the company in 1946, these elements changed in fairly rapid succession. The first thing to be changed was the nomenclature itself. In place of the elaborate “Sasieni” stamp of pre war pipes, a simpler, though still script style, “Sasieni” was used. This can be seen on patent pipes which have the small, old style dots.



Soon after, Sasieni enlarged the dots themselves, and they formed an equilateral rather than an elongated diamond. My pet theory on this is the dots were enlarged to make up for the fact there were no longer eight of them, but I can’t prove it. Finally the patent number was discontinued, and the words “Four Dot” were added. The shank thus read:



Sasieni

Four Dot

London Made.



Somewhat later still, this was modified to reflect the finish, e.g. Four Dot Walnut, or Four Dot Natural. All these changes seem to have been made in the years between 1946 and 1950. Therefore a pipe with new style dots and old style stamping almost certainly has a replacement stem.



This system changed little if at all in the ensuing thirty years. When the company was sold in 1979, one of the first things the new owners did was to eliminate the town names from the shanks. The dots were enlarged yet further, and the Sasieni name, though still done in script, was larger, as was the rest of the shank nomenclature, which in all other ways was similar to the Pre-Transition nomenclature. While these pipes are not as collectible as the family made pipes, they were made with care and are high quality.



The nomenclature changed again in 1986, with the sale of the company to the Post-Transition firm. The three line nomenclature was changed to two lines, with the first reading “Sasieni 4 Dot” and the second identifying the finish, e.g. Natural, Walnut, or Ruff Root. Note how 4 Dot is spelled, using an Arabic numeral 4, as opposed to spelling out the word “four”. This is the easiest way to spot a Post-Transition Sasieni, as the new company has used both script and block lettering to spell the word “Sasieni” on the shank.