Italian Estates: Castello Old Antiquari Rusticated Billiard (SC) (16) (1950s-1960s) 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. This Billiard is a rather light, vintage piece that was crafted around the 1950s or 1960s, and it boasts a sleek, slender stretch of shank and stem that reach out of a wide transition. The bowl stands at the end of this shank and stem, resting atop a rounded heel and canting forward slightly as its walls rise and taper gently toward the rim, its comparative fullness standing out against the shank and stem's comparatively willowy look. Comfortable in hand and remarkably portable, this pipe is finished in Castello's Old Antiquari finish, though it's dressed in a craggy rustication rather than a sandblast, and it boasts a fumed rim and warm auburn stain.