Smooth Bent Billard (CCCC) 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 awarded this bent Billiard four out of a possible five C's, and it's clear why he felt the piece deserved such a high grade. Brilliant flame grain shines through on the walls of the bowl and the flanks of the dramatically upturned shank, all of it finished smoothly and colored brightly with a honey-blonde stain. The rim is inflated and the fore and aft canted ever-so-slightly forward for a fascinating profile on the bowl, and the shank is muscular in its reach up to to the bent saddle stem of black acrylic. Great color and great grain are the keys to this piece's excellence, another stunning work of briar and acrylic from one of Italy's very best.