Rosslare Royal Irish Black Sandblasted (05) Fishtail Tobacco Pipe

I've long been a fan of the Rosslare series, smooth or sandblasted. This sandblasted piece features such a rich palette of colors and textures, each simultaneously complementing and competing with each other, that I can't help but find it appealing. The jet black stained sandblasted bowl, the bright, hard sterling silver mounts at the end of the shank and on the stem and the bright variegated faux-amber acrylic stem all play together in fascinating, and extraordinarily appealing, ways. The '05' shape is one of the most iconic (perhaps the most iconic) of Peterson's shapes (well, it and its System series brethren, the '305' and 'XL315', which are the same shape in different sizes, but cut for the System series). It's easy to see why-- it's not such a classically English shape that it's like all the other, for example, billiards out there. It's an old, old Peterson shape, but one that has remained largely unique to them (or, at least, is perfectly recognizably as Peterson's shape when others make it).

-- Sykes Wilford