Smooth Acorn with Spalted Beechwood (CCCCC) 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 graded this Acorn with five C's, reflecting excellent grain and shaping, both of which are easily observed here. The bowl is wonderfully round, arcing perfectly in all directions as it forms its titular shape. The grain is remarkable, with flame grain stretching from the heel to the rounded ridge of the outer rim all the way around the bowl, and a thick helping of birdseye decorating the well-inflated rim. The shank is muscular and lightly upturned into a curiously shaped accent of spalted beechwood which nearly mimics the knob of a baseball bat. Behind it sits a saddle stem of black acrylic with a single expansion ring leading back to a very wide bit.