Not too long ago, pipe makers Brad Pohlmann and Jeff Gracik put their heads together and puzzled out this year’s Smokingpipes.com Christmas pipe. Since then they’ve produced a total of seven, gorgeous sandblasted pear shaped briars all of which have been banded in sterling silver. Luckily, Sykes and Alyson were ‘video recorder ready’ when present at the conceptualization of this series.

By the way, these pipes will be made available to you very, very soon…

Below are a smattering of photos from our visit to Jeff Gracik's workshop in San Diego, California last week. Brad Pohlmann was also in town, so they were working together, which was a particular treat to witness. Alyson took most of the photos, she being the designated photographer for such outings (and for good reason; I have an extraordinary ability to make even the simplest photos come out blurry).

Jeff and Brad were working on the six Smokingpipes.com Christmas pipes which will be available in the next few weeks. After much discussion, we opted for a pear shape (largely because Brad broke into the chorus of Twelve Days of Christmas). We tried to get them to make a giant pipe holder shaped like a tree and a partridge shaped tamper, but I think that was a bit much to ask. The pipes will come with a nice leather presentation bag, plus a beautiful, if somewhat more conservative, tamper. During the day of working together, they (mostly) completed one pipe, and rough shaped one more. You can see the completed pipe in the last photo.