Claudio Cavicchi: Brown Smooth Cavalier Tobacco Pipe

Claudio Cavicchi is truly a master of his craft, and his ability to coax the best possible grain out of every piece of briar will always astound me. His over 50 years of experience ensure that his pipes are not only beautiful, but expertly shaped and precisely drilled. The Cavalier is a shape of German descent, having originated in the old Tyrol region that's now Austria, Italy, and Germany. These pipes feature a unique style of shaping which is seldom seen in modern pipe making, with a combination of features that set this style of pipe apart from all others. Here, Cavicchi has rendered the Cavalier with a plump Apple bowl, maintaining a forward-oriented visual weight while offering a wealth of curvature to appreciate while smoking. Measuring in at just slightly over four and a half inches long, this pipe is impressively compact, and it boasts a tight transition that pairs the bowl to a deeply bent shank and stem combination. The shank itself is an angled cylinder of briar that extends down past the transition to form a foot, arguably the most iconic element of the storied shape, and it's been paired to a smartly downturned saddle stem of black acrylic. The bowl itself showcases thick walls that nicely insulate the chamber and provide ample space to showcase one of Cavicchi's rich, walnut-toned stains: revealing dense flame grain around the bowl.