Castello: 'Castello' Billiard (KK) Tobacco Pipe

When Carlo Scotti founded Castello in 1947, he set out to redefine the image of Italian pipes in the minds of pipe buyers at the time. By marketing the handmade aspect of his pipes — in contrast to the plethora of factory-made pipes flooding the market — he elevated the status of his company, while also helping to set the bowl-centric and whimsical shaping ideals now common in Italian neoclassic pipe making. Castello has slightly modified the archetypal Billiard proportions in this pipe to make the shape their own, at the same time hewing close enough to tradition to maintain appeal for lovers of the types of functionalistic, yet elegant pipes offered by many Anglo-French pipemakers. Like many standard Billiards, the cylindrical bowl perches with a subtle forward cant before the rounded, arrow-straight shank-and-stem arrangement, and the shank maintains a thickness that is proportional to that of the bowl. The eponymous Castello finish, smooth and colored a rich chestnut hue, highlights the stummel's gorgeous cross grain and churning links of birdseye blowing across the bowl's flanks.