Askwith: Sandblasted Natural Pencil Shank Billiard Tobacco Pipe

Chris Askwith is an artisan pipe maker from England. He is known for his adherence to classic Anglo-French shaping cues with modern finishes, his portfolio filled with precisely rendered pipes with balanced proportions. This "Pencil Shank" Billiard falls neatly into Askwith's typical style. Like many standard Billiards, the bowl is pert and subtly rounded, standing with a slight forward cant at the fore of a cylindrical, arrow-straight shank-and-stem arrangement. Where this pipe deviates is in how slight the shank and stem are. Whereas the average Billiard's shank is about one third the height of its bowl, this shank is closer to a quarter the height of the bowl. It is so slim, in fact, that it uses a reverse tenon arrangement to join the shank to the brightly colored polyester stem. Despite the pipe's small size, the chamber doesn't suffer greatly for tobacco-holding capacity. Additionally, its size also makes it very lightweight. At less than an ounce, it is easy on the jaw when smoking hands free. A craggy tanblast dresses the stummel to show off a wealth of attractive grain, its color pairing neatly with that of the brown- and yellow-brindled stem.