Italian Estates: Castello Collection Billiard (KKKK) (2019) Tobacco Pipe

Italian workshop Castello has a rich history that stretches back to 1947 with its founding by Carlo Scotti, being established as one of the first Italian brands to offer high-quality handmade pipes to the general public. In the 1960s, following the addition of Luigi Radice and Peppino Ascorti to their team of carvers, Castello's pipes began to take on a form that was quite different from the Anglo-French classics that they and others had been producing. The Italian neoclassical style which they had begun to develop led not only to a shaping renaissance within Italy, but the production of a number of now iconic profiles. A muscular Billiard of Nosewarmer proportions, this pipe features a stout bowl resting on a jutting, pronounced heel reminiscent of the "55" shape. The bowl is thickly walled and has a sizeable tobacco chamber for comfortable smoking during long sessions, its substance paired to a softly tapering shank out back. This shank is thick and tapers into a black acrylic stem that's very softly curved right at the end of the bit, altering the profile with a bit of curvature but keeping the smoking posture nearly the same. Dressed in the warm, auburn-tinged stain of the Italian workshop's eponymous finish, the stummel here showcases a wealth of handsome grain.