Ropp: Ruby Sandblasted Bent Bulldog Tobacco Pipe

In bent form, the classic Bulldog adds elegant curvature to the shape's inherently firm-lined, rigid appeal. The geometric elements of the diamond shank and crisply tapered bowl remain, but the rounded heel, angled shank, and downturned stem soften the profile. Ropp's rendition here softens that profile even further with its compact proportions and gentle taper through the shank and stem. It fits well into the French marque's penchant for timeless shape chart standards, hitting all the shaping cues that make this design such a classic. Here, in the Ruby series, the bowl's characteristic beadlines reveal the briar's lighter, natural hue to contrast against the rest of the stummel's ruby stain.

Ropp's Ruby line presents a more colorful palette than the French marque's other series, dressing each pipe in a crimson sandblast. Such a stain hearkens back to old-school French and English pipes, and the retro style is furthered by the inclusion of new old-stock stems of genuine horn — a mouthpiece material used extensively in the early 1900s. Though the horn stems also call to mind Ropp's Vintage, Vintage Stout, and Vintage Superior series, the Ruby prioritizes darker-hued horn for a deeper, warmer aesthetic that pairs handsomely with the scarlet stain of the stummel. Furthermore, unlike the Vintage lines, Ropp's Ruby offers both straight and bent shapes: While vulcanite and acrylic are relatively easy to bend, requiring only heat, horn is much more unruly, needing both heat and prolonged pressure to ensure the bent shape holds. To fashion the Ruby's bent pieces, then, Antoine Grenard, who runs the old Chapuis-Comoy factory in Saint-Claude, France, went so far as to use a vintage stem-bending machine from the Chapuis-Comoy pipe museum, thoroughly cementing the Ruby line's vintage appeal.