Black Sandblasted Billiard Tobacco Pipe

Claudio Cavicchi is not only a renowned pipe maker but also a renowned pipe smoker, having won the Committee International of Pipe Smokers Clubs' slow smoking world championship in 1993 by keeping three grams of tobacco lit for just over three hours and nine minutes. Cavicchi only took up pipe making full-time after a 30-year farming career, turning his first pipe when he decided to make his own Oom Paul rather than continuing to wait for delivery of one he already ordered. Cavicchi pipes are known for their superior grain, with former Pipes and tobaccos magazine editor Chuck Stanion remarking that their titular maker "can read briar as though it were a printed page."

The stummel of this Billiard from Cavicchi is darkly sandblasted over a red stain that can be seen in the stamping panel on the underside of the shank and in specks that occasionally manage to shine through the sandblast. The walls of the bowl are quite straightforward and only lightly tapered from the waist up, and the shank stretches back to a tapered stem of black acrylic that ends in a wide bit. Though shaped very much according to shape-chart specifications, it's no ordinary pipe by any means, constructed and finished beautifully to provide plenty of visual intrigue.