Italian Estates: Becker Sandblasted Strawberry Wood Pickaxe (Three Clubs) Tobacco Pipe

Federico Becker's personal shaping style most often conforms to sleek line work and angular aesthetics, with many of his pipes featuring pointed heel spurs. This Pickaxe design takes that cue to the extreme, the Dublin-like bowl tapering past the transition into a sharp point. It exudes crisp angularity and poise, the raised transition perching the bowl as the arrow straight shank-and-stem combination complements with its slender proportions and streamlined shaping. The overall profile calls to mind the clay pipes of yesteryear — Belge and Cutty designs — the prioritized trim shaping and forward-urging momentum. This piece is considerably shorter than those clay pieces, though, and remains impressively lightweight. Fashioned from strawberry wood, it displays a slightly different grain pattern from that of briar, but it retains the same rustic aesthetic and traditional appeal, dressed here in a dark stain, apart from the inner rim's accenting hue.