This is British issued, but we have more knowledge here than at the WMF forum the mads can delete it if they want. Being a retired boatswain mate, I can't help myself when I see a cool pipe. The year 1905 got me that's early might be the oldest pipe in the collection. Can anyone give me info on this one paid close to what I paid for my dragon pipe in the collection.

 

Don't think I posted the whole collection yet. Most are US Navy with a few British Navy and one Japanese WW2 Navy and an early Russian one before the revolution with the ships name. It kind of got out of hand collecting these. Love the Navy movie with Tom Hanks as the captain of a WW2 destroyer where you see the Boatswain mate of the watch piping brings back memories when I did it plus our bridge was old some same equipment on the bridge as in the movie.

Probably should better posted in our worldwide forum, but I can tell you it was made 1905-06 by a London maker….i just can’t read the makers mark….English silver is usually well marked allowing us to ID the year, city and maker 

Howdy,  That's a beautiful pipe and impressive collection.   I'll bet if you googled a few London antique silver dealers and sent them a clear photo of the marks they could ID the maker of that exceptional call.  This is one of a couple old USN ones I have, engraved to a China Sailor whom I was able to find pictures of.  You might enjoy seeing it as a collector and bosuns mate yourself.   I have one to a Span Am War sailor on USS Iowa from his granddaughter along with his CSC book but not engraved or silver.  He was a carpenters mate and later mustang,  died on duty at Newport in the early 1930s, almost a 40 year man.   As for the owner of this call, BM1c Forsyth,  I thought it was interesting that he was the lone squid at one end of the two ranks of sea-going gyrenes.  

 

 

Aerial: Very very nice! And to a China gunboat none the less!

Thanks, Dirk, it's one of my small,  USN collection pride and joys.   It's got a beautiful sound,  I'm sure a bosun like River Rat 1 could really make it sing.   Fate works in mysterious ways, I owned this USS Tulsa photo for a few years, along with the one below taken at Canton, China on May 4, 1929 (dated in upper left corner) that were originally  owned by a sailmaker's mate pictured in both photos on the far right corner of the bridge leaning out the window (guess he staked out his spot to be easy to spot later)  before finding this call and being fortunate to buy it.  And from some internet poking around, I was able to find an ID'd picture of Aubrey Forsyth, the call's original owner and  that enabled me to find him in the 1931 USS Tulsa ship's company in dress blues at China.   Forsyth's pipe came out of Canada, so it was nice to repatriate to CA.  

 

My Grandfather served in China he brought back a hand carved wooden chest my sister has that. cool stuff photos and the pipe. When I got off active-duty first job was working for a school district at a high school as a custodian it paid the bills. The head custodian was retired Navy, and a China sailor John Mcgan still remember his name was not into history should have picked his brain about his time in China same with my Grandad. John still had the old white jumper with the blue piping that was long gone when I did my 22 years there back now this was in the late 1980's.

Your grandfather was a China Sailor and his pipe is still in your family?   That is neat.   I've got regrets too about not picking the brains of living history when I was a kid and in high school.  My grampa born in 1893, the sailor in my avatar with his older brother the doughboy, was a telegrapher with the Milwaukee Road for several years before the war.   So when he enlisted they sent him to the the US Naval Radio school on the campus of Harvard in Cambridge, MA.   He told me that he used to get a kick out of telling people he was a "Harvard man" with a straight face.   I don't know if he finished high school.   My dad's cousin, enlisted in the Navy out of high school in 1940 and  was the radioman on a dive bomber squadron when USS Lexington was sunk at Coral Sea in May 1942.   Wish I'd picked his brain, since he did 20 years active and almost 10 reserve.  I remember him praising the Lexington's captain Frederick C. Sherman as a "sailor's sailor" and telling me he was one of the last off the ship along with Sherman.  That and they opened up the galleys to the crew at the end and some guys abandoning ship with tubs of ice cream.   They  lined up all their shoes and thought they were coming back, a credit to how cool Sherman was. 

My Grandad was not a boatswain Mate I am fourth generation, but I am the only boatswain mate.

Tulsa Liberty pass, the last China boat to survive the whole war ?

Nice liberty pass.   I might have one or two from the Tulsa or the old Asiatic destroyer tender Black Hawk  (AD-9) circa 1929-1936 issued to the sailmaker's mate who owned the two Tulsa ships company photos.   Interesting trivia,  during WWI  Black Hawk was assigned as tender and flagship to the North Sea Mine Force and stood out of  Boston in June 1918 to take station at Inverness, Scotland. She remained there until the end of World War I and then shifted her base to Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, for the North Sea mine sweep.   My gramma's oldest brother was a mustang ensign on USS Saranac, one of 10 mine planters in Mine Squadron 1 (also known as the "Yankee Mining Squadron".)   Navy history is fun with all the connections like that.    Sometimes the puzzle is easy-   Lan O. McGriff (1908-1971),  I'd bet a lifer,  born in 'Bama but stayed in San Diego for the best weather on the planet and the sea, like so many Navy guys.   

 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/211503595/lan-o-mcgriff

 

River Rat1,  hope you don't mind your original post about your b&$chin', engraved. sterling 1905 bosun's pipe taking a side tour, but I figure a 4th gen Navy man wouldn't mind.  I'll try to get back on course.  Here's another English made boatswain's pipe,  a poor cousin of yours, made of brass and with a 50" long brass lanyard, both with 120+ years of honest patina.    As mentioned, it was owned by a Rhode Island born,  USN lifer who enlisted in 1897, was shipwright on the USS Iowa during the Span Am war and rose through the ranks to Warrant Officer Chief Carpenter.    With the 4 foot lanyard, he might have used it as a measuring tape or a lead line.   The bowl isn't dented so he never tried to tune it.  He died of a sudden cardiac condition at 57 in his 36th year of service at NTC Newport Hospital in 1933 and was posthumously given rank of LT in the Construction Corps.   This pipe and his leather-bound CSC book came from his granddaughter, whose mother was the baby in this picture,  ca WW1.   I also have his rim impressed Sampson Medal, purchased out of Texas, where it had wandered over 75 plus years from Rhode Island, where his family lived and he's buried.