Smooth Blowfish with Horn (Snail) Tobacco Pipe

There was once a time, thousands of years ago, when the elites of many human societies sought to express their high status and great potency by adorning themselves with jewelry made of iron. Iron? Yes, iron - more to the point, meteoric iron, sourced from meteorites. You see, this was all the rage before man had learned to recognize, extract, and smelt iron ores occurring naturally here on earth into workable metal; iron pretty much came from meteorites, or not at all, and that made it extremely rare, and extreme rarity in turn made it extremely valuable. and both made the skill to work iron with a beauty fitting to its rarity and value both rare and valuable itself as well.

And what held true thousands of years ago to the iron which fell from the stars and those few men who were trusted to work with it, still holds true today, even with pipes. The piece of briar from which Tom Eltang created this dark, richly contrasted Blowfish is a thing of exceptional beauty, a truly rare and choice medium, and it takes a skilled hand and deft eye, like Tom's, to do such a piece of briar justice.

- Eric N. Squires