Smooth Volcano (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."

This Volcano from Cavicchi features brilliant flame grain stretching up to the rim from a rounded, teardrop-shaped heel covered in dense birdseye. The bowl is a classic interpretation of the Volcano shape, with deeply sloped walls all around and a flat, wide rim decorated with more birdseye. The shank is sharply upturned from the bowl and the entire stummel is finished smoothly with a lovely honey-blonde stain that shines brightly, allowing the grain to be easily followed by the eye. The saddle stem is black acrylic with very brief shoulders and a bend toward the wide bit about halfway up from the shank. Cavicchi's proficiency at reading grain is on grand display here, especially with the flame grain of the bowl.