Bruno Nuttens: Bing Sandblasted (B2) Tobacco Pipe

Though he was born in Belgium, Bruno Nuttens calls France home, moving there after attending university to study literature. In 2012, Nuttens purchased a collection of old estate pipes with the intent to keep only one, however, he thought it would be a terrible waste to dispense with the rest. To avoid this waste, Nuttens began restoring the pipes, leading to a career as a respected and prolific pipe restorer, reviving over 7,000 pipes in the proceeding six years and becoming intimately familiar with their craftsmanship and acquiring an eye for artistic shaping. After being inducted into the Confrérie des Maîtres Pipiers de Saint-Claude in 2013, Nuttens began making pipes, inspired and assisted by fellow inductee Pierre Morel. Bruno continued to restore pipes over the next few years, making pipes as a side business until 2018, when he refocused to carve them full-time. Later bolstered by instruction from Tom Eltang, Nuttens has made a name for himself as a maker of high-quality pieces which draw inspiration from the French, Danish, and German schools of carving.

Along with his artisan pipes, Nuttens additionally crafts a range of serialized pieces which lean more heavily on the classic French aesthetic, such as the Bing's line seen here. The Bing's line is defined by a singular shape, the Bing's Favorite Billiard, a profile popularized by legendary American crooner Bing Crosby. The shape itself is defined by its standard-sized Billiard bowl paired to an extra-long shank and stem combination, contributing a willowy, gracile aesthetic to its silhouette and a unique visual balance. Nuttens crafts these pipes using pre-turned stummels, ensuring their quality before hand-finishing them and pairing them to similarly hand-finished stems of either acrylic or vulcanite. What results is a wonderfully timeless rendition of a classic shape, possessed of an elegant and refined silhouette sure to please even the most discerning enthusiasts. This particular Bing's Billiard is an iconic rendition of the timeless shape, placing a pert bowl at the fore of a lengthy shank-and-stem arrangement, creating a sleek and stylish silhouette. Furthermore, Nuttens grades every Bing on an ascending scale from B1 to B4, and this B2-graded piece is dressed in a rugged sandblast, which highlights tactile grain in vivid detail.