Danish Estates: Nording Sandblasted Billiard with Silver Tobacco Pipe

Showcasing Nørding's versatility, this Billiard eschews the Danish Fancy style more commonly seen in his portfolio in favor of balanced Anglo-French shaping cues. A pert, upright bowl is posed at the fore, its figure formed by sturdy, straight walls traveling from heel to rim. A muscular shank transitions from the bowl and meets a sleek tapered stem, with the junction offset by a bright silver band for a dose of flash. The stummel wears a rugged earthy sandblast, offering a wealth of stimulating texture for the hand to appreciate, with the rim left smooth for contrast.

A trailblazer for the Danish Fancy style, Erik Nørding has been handcrafting pipes since the 1960s. Even before his pipe-making career, Nørding always had a knack for invention. Taking after his father, he worked as a blacksmith when he was 15 years old and later studied engineering, all in preparation to one day take over his family's factory. After graduating, Nørding veered away from running the factory and took up fashioning pipe-making machinery, which would lead him toward making his own pipes.