Smooth Bent Billiard with Olivewood (CCC) 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."

Cavicchi did an excellent job of reading the briar this bent Billiard started from — very tight, very parallel flame grain rings the walls of the bowl and covers the flanks of the shank, while birdseye follows the rim of the bowl. The stummel is dressed in a beautiful honey-blonde stain that is as attractive as it is bright and finished smoothly to reflect light with incredible ease. An olivewood accent sits at the junction, after which a very lightly bent stem of tapered black acrylic stretches to a wide bit. The lines of this pipe are mostly rounded, but the design is still straightforward, making this a fine specimen of a lightly bent billiard and with excellent grain to boot.