Yeti: Sandblasted Serpentine Green Strawberry Wood Dublin with Bakelite (1038) Tobacco Pipe

Micah Cryder of Yeti Pipes is an incredibly talented artisan, one of my favorites in fact, as he injects each of his pipes with a degree of whimsy and jocularity that reflects his own palpable passion for the craft, all while imbuing them with reverence toward his inspirations. This style of Dublin is Cryder's most oft-seen interpretation of the shape, and it boasts a timeless, decidedly retro design immediately evocative of the Danish school of design thanks to its sleek lines and impressively balanced proportions. The transition is wide, with ample room to drape a digit if desired, and it's been very subtly cinched to better emphasize the bowl's curves, which the shank's slim, low-set construction deftly aids. Said shank extends to be slightly longer than the bowl is tall, balancing a bit of this pipe's visual weight, and it reaches out to meet an eye-catching saddle stem rendered from pale Bakelite: the material something of a trademark for the Montana native. The resin-based medium is easily pliable, though time-consuming to work with, and its value continues to rise, as its bright colors and stunning sheen are used in jewelry and, of all things, space shuttles. Up front, the bowl itself stands atop a firm heel, the relatively hard point standing out against the curves that possess much of the rest of this pipe's build, harmonizing with the similarly firm shaping of the saddle stem's base. The walls of the bowl flare out from the heel expressively, complete with enough rounding to make for a comfortable smoking experience, and they terminate at a broad, plateau-crowned rim for a good deal of organic charm. At the fore wall, Cryder has extended the lines of the bowl rather significantly, leaving the aft rather upright while the lines at the fore push out proudly and lend the composition a dynamic forward cant. Dressing this piece is one of Yeti's signature Serpentine Green sandblasts, revealing dense stacks of growth rings flowing down the bowl of this pipe's strawberry wood stummel, its deep, rich, green stain appearing as nearly black and being richly contrasted by the pale tones of the stem.