Brown Smooth Bent Billiard Sitter 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."

This bent Billiard from Cavicchi might seem most notable on first glance for the small platform jutting from the heel that is just thick enough to allow the piece to sit upright on a flat surface, but true to Cavicchi's legendary status as a grain spotter, the bowl is dressed in striking cross grain and birdseye that are smoothly finished to shine with utter ease. The bowl is lightly canted forward leading away from the shank, which flares outward as it nears the junction and is dressed with more swirling grain. The stem, made of black acrylic, is saddle-style and lightly bent, a sleek conclusion to a well-made, well-imagined pipe.