Danish Estates: Nording Smooth Bent Dublin (20) Tobacco Pipe

Handcrafting pipes since the 60s, there are few pipe makers more experienced than Erik Nørding. During his long career, Nørding popularized the Danish Fancy style, a maximalist aesthetic that delights in baroque flourishes. This bent Dublin by Nørding is abound with asymmetry, featuring a bowl with two Cobra-esque ridgelines rising up the flanks, but not at their midpoints, rather, they are diagonally opposed, like at two opposite points of a square. The careful asymmetric construction gives the bowl a unique, but comfortable, in hand feel while also showcasing unbroken vertical grain and rippling growth rings. Also, the shank possesses an asymmetric design as well, posing as a slightly distorted Reuleaux triangle. Furthermore, the shank-and-stem arrangement display several briar and black acrylic accents, which form a stripe pattern, making it difficult to distinguish were the shank ends and the stem begins.