Anthony Bulone Obituary

Anthony D. Bulone, 92, of Meridian, died December 12, 2018. Funeral Home: Cremation Society of Idaho.

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Published by Idaho Press Tribune from Dec. 15 to Dec. 21, 2018.

Memories and Condolences
for Anthony Bulone

Sponsored by Cremation Society of Idaho - Boise.

6 Entries

Emily Walsh

March 18, 2025

Thank you for all your hard-work in the plastic´s industry. I am sure that your loved one´s that have passed on before you will be happy to see you.

Annette schenck

December 5, 2021

I was just looking at Tony´s obituary again. Tony taught sculpting at our shop in Seattle. What a wonderful personality !! He started the class by introducing himself and asking them was soo many immigrants were named Tony. He said when they came into New York Harbor they saw the sign TONY. He had a wonderful scenes of humor and I still feel so grateful that I got to know him!!

'Mickey Mouse' pipe made by Anthony Bulone

November 8, 2019

The following article was published in the Society for Clay Pipe Research Newsletter, 92, 2017, pages 52-55 (http://scpr.co/) and is posted here as a tribute to Anthony.

California Pipe Dreams
by Anthony Bulone and David Higgins

Anthony D Bulone was born in 1926 and has spent more than 65 years sculpting and designing products for the plastic, porcelain and metal toy industries. He became a master sculptor, model maker, pattern maker, mould maker and instructor, developing products in plastics, ceramics, porcelain, stone, silicon, epoxy, resin, latex, vinyl and metal. He created the first all plastic hobby kits for Revell, but perhaps his most famous product is the first pattern for the Barbie Doll, which was created for Mattel Toys in 1957. Anthony's wife, Lylis (23 August 1930 - 27 August 1998), was the inspiration and model of the original "Barbie" design, which was created in his Santa Monica studio, California (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Anthony Bulone together with his wife Lylis and the first Barbie Doll pattern, which was modelled on her.

Anthony's interest in pipe making came about in the mid-1970s when a friend who owned a tobacconist's in Solvang, California, where they both lived, asked if he could make clay pipes because those he was ordering from overseas would arrive broken. Not only did Anthony design a pipe but he also came up with the skin-packed' method of preparing them for shipping, which involved shrink wrapping a dozen pipes onto a sheet of cardboard (Fig. 2). These sheets were then easily stacked in boxes for transit without
the pipes rattling together and getting broken. As a result, he got an order for 3,000 dozen from a distributor (36,000 pipes), fully packed and shipped.

Figure 2: A dozen skin-packed pipes ready for shipping.
The process for making these pipes took quite a few steps. First was the design and development, which called for pattern making / sculpturing / mould making and casting. The production run was made from twenty plaster moulds, ten in a fixture ready to be poured with ceramic clay slip and the other ten ready to be assembled and rotated every ten minutes into the pouring fixture. Using this method, it was possible to produce 150 pipes in a day. All the production, packaging and shipping was done by Anthony and his two daughters.

Figure 3: An example of a pipe with the main part of the bowl plain and the maker's mark SOLVANG CALIFORNIA / ANTHONY on the sides of the stem.

The majority of the pipes were single piece pipes made of white clay with a fishtail mouthpiece coated in a lead-free turquoise glaze (Fig. 3). There is an incuse mark reading SOLVANG CALIFORNIA / ANTHONY' in small, neat, sans-serif capitals on the sides of the stem. The pipe is a cutty style with a large plain bowl and a foliage spray on each side of the wide heel. The main part of the bowl is plain but similar patterns with a foliage spray at the base were also made with additional motifs added to the bowl sides containing other designs such as Mickey Mouse (Fig. 4), a ram's head, a windmill or a kneeling woman.

Figure 4: An Anthony' clay pipe featuring Mickey Mouse on the side of the bowl.

As well as the all-clay models, Anthony also created socketed bowls that were fitted with inserted mouthpieces. These bowls were coated with a glaze that is essentially clear but with a mottled brownish tint, making the pipes look like pale stoneware. At least two patterns of this style were produced, one modelled as a ram's head and the other as the head of a Viking (Fig. 5).

Figure 4: Socketed bowls modelled as a ram's head and a Viking.

Anthony has not made any new pipes since about 2000, but he still has some old stock that he is selling via his website (www. anthonysdesigns.net). Now in his 90s, he is also winding down his other activities and selling his mould business, which produced moulds for a variety of other ceramic items, including portrait busts, figurines and dolls. But his legacy will live on in the thousands of crisply moulded pipes that continue to grace collections around the world.

Brenda Harper

April 26, 2019

I am so grateful for the friendship of Tony. We shared a love of plants and I will always enjoy the plants and memories we shared. May he rest in peace.

Tim Bulone

December 19, 2018

May your loving memories come flooding in, Lisa and Jill, when grief takes a rest.

December 17, 2018

May the promise of everlasting life found at John 6:40 bring you comfort and hope. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy at this difficult time

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