Smooth Bent Ball (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."

Alternating birdseye and flame grain decorate the bowl of this bent Ball, which is substantial in the hand thanks to both its shape and its generous size, which allows significantly muscular walls to surround the chamber. The shank is equally muscular but very short, yielding quickly to a tapered stem of black acrylic that is bent lightly just before the bit and given a nice touch of class with two wooden expansion rings near the shank face. It's a great example of a Ball bowl given very handsome grain from an artisan who is renowned for his ability to find it, and will no doubt satisfy anyone in the market for a striking Italian pipe.