JANUARY SALE - Alfred Dunhill - Montgolfier Shell Briar Limited Edition 5/42 Pipe (DUN539)

On 19 September 1783, the Aérostat Réveillon was launched from the royal palace in Versailles in front of King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette and the royal court. To test the effect of the higher atmospheres on living creatures, the balloon carried the first living passengers: a sheep named Mont-au-ciel (“Climb-to-the-sky”), a duck, and a rooster. The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered 2 miles, and obtained an altitude of about 460m after which it safely landed. As the animals had survived this flight unscathed, the king authorised flights with humans. For this purpose, Jacques-Étienne built a 60,000 cubic foot balloon, about 70 feet tall and 46 feet in diameter. The paper used was adorned with rich decorations of gold figures on a blue background, including fleur-de-lis and the 12 zodiac signs in the upper section, suns with Louis XVI's face in the centre interlaced with the royal monogram in the central section and red & blue drapery and golden eagles at the base of the balloon. On 15 October 1783, Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier was the first human to lift off earth in a tethered test flight. Thus, the age of human flight had started.

Limited Edition Only 42 pieces of this model has been produced worldwide, which is much lower than normal limited editions making this a true collectors piece.

A little history of Alfred Dunhill:

In 1915, the famous white spot pipe range was introduced when customers had trouble knowing which way to insert the handmade vulcanite mouthpieces, In solution of this Alfred Dunhill ordered white spots to be placed on the upper side of the stem. This would now become a trademark of Dunhill pipes and the “white spot” soon became known as a symbol of quality.

Pipe 5 of 42

This pipe has been individually photographed, so that the pipe you see in the picture is the pipe you will receive.