Nomenclature Information

This page gives information about the nomenclature you will find on my pipes, and will explain what all the spiders, bats, dragonflies and frogs mean. It will also detail year-to-year changes that have occurred since I've started making pipes.

Nomenclature

I use a couple different stamps, but all pipes are stamped with "michael lindner" and "handmade usa" in a straight line, or "michael lindner made by hand usa" in a circle. In addition, each pipe has a grade and pricing tier stamp (my grading system was implemented in late 2001, and pricing tiers were added in September of 2007) and a year of manufacture. The Spider grade uses a small spider stamp and the Dragonfly grade uses a small dragonfly stamp. In late 2007 I also implemented a stamp to indicate when a piece is considered a "Magnum" or "Double Magnum"; these are stamped with a frog (Magnum) or a bat (Double Magnum), respectively.

Historically, my nomenclature has changed very little, but there have been some changes. Here I will detail the changes from year to year:

2000: This is the first year I started making pipes, in July of 2000. The first seven or eight pieces were stamped with "michael lindner made by hand" in a circle, with "united states" in a curved line coming off the circle. This gave the stamp the look of a flower, with the "united states" stamping being the stem and the words in the circle being the flower. This stamp was short-lived as it was large and very hard to work with. If you find one of these pipes, you have found something very, very rare. Soon before I started selling pipes, I changed to a "michael lindner made by hand" in a circle, with "united states" in the center of the circle. In addition to these stamps, all 2000 year pipes were stamped with "00" to indicate the year of production.

2001: I continued using the "michael lindner made by hand" in a circle, with "united states" in the center of the circle. The year code changed to "01". Late in the year, I implimented the "Dragonfly" stamp to indicate the highest grade of Lindner. It wouldn't be until mid 2002 that I implimented the current letter code stamping to indicate other grades.

2002: In this year, sometime around June or July, I implemented a full grading scale that I still have today, with the exception of the "Spider" grade (which didn't come along for a couple more years). The date code changed to the full year "2002" (instead of "02").

2003: I added the straight-line stamping of "michael lindner" and "handmade usa", so starting in this year, pipes could be stamped either with the round stamp or the straight line stamps. The date code remained the full year "2003". Any pieces sold through "The Piperack" also carried the logo for "The Piperack".

2004: The "Spider" grade was added and thus a spider stamp was created. Again, other nomenclature could be either circular or straight line, and the date code of "2004" was used to indicate year. The date code stamping shrank in size very slightly, as well. All other nomenclature remained the same.

2005: During this year, all of my stamps were lost by UPS when I was shipping them to use in Yuma. Everything was replaced, but there were some slight changes. The circular stamp was made smaller, and "united states" was dropped in favour of "usa". The Dragonfly and Spider stamps shrank slightly. The date code changed, of course, to "2005". The straight-line stamps remained unchanged. I dropped using "The Piperack" logo stamp this year as well, as I implemented a trade-in policy with all my dealers.

2006: The only change to nomenclature was to reflect the year: "2006".

2007: Nomenclature remained the same until August 2007, when pricing tier stamping was added. This stamping is a circled number (1, 2, 3, etc) and indicates a price point within the grades. The year stamp changed to "2007". The addition of two stamps to indicate "Magnum" or "Double Magnum" were added: a "frog" stamp to indicate "Magnums" and a "bat" stamp to indicate "Double Magnums".

2008: The only change to nomenclature was to reflect the year: "2008".

2009: The only change to nomenclature was to reflect the year: "2009".

2010: The only change to nomenclature was to reflect the year: "2010".

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