English Estates: Charatan's Make Belvedere Billiard (212) Tobacco Pipe

Compared to some of the more eccentric designs to leave the Charatan workshop, this "212" Billiard is far more classical in silhouette, the shank here paired to a sleek, tapering stem. Its proportions are quite robust throughout, with the bowl commanding much of the piece's visual weight as it grows stout walls from atop a rounded heel, offering enough curvature for a comfortable feel in hand. A warm walnut stain dresses the stummel and showcases a lively spread of flame grain around the muscular bowl.

Charatan boasts a long, well-respected history of pipe making, with Frederick Charatan founding the business in 1863. One of the first pipe makers in England, Charatan began by producing meerschaum pipes, finding great success and quickly needing to relocate to a larger workshop, and it was here that Charatan began to carve briar pipes. Charatan has the rare distinction of being the first marque in England to hand-make their briar pipes from start to finish, starting with a raw block of burl and a vulcanite blank, coining the process with the now-iconic stamping of "Charatan's Make." Charatan was so successful that, before Dunhill began to make their own briars, Charatan actually supplied the legendary marque with pipes from 1908 to 1910. In 1962, then leader Reuben Charatan passed away, and the rights to the Charatan brand were sold in the next few years to Lane, who was the primary distributor for their pipes. Charatan then changed hands several more times in the following years, before being bought by Dunhill in 2002.