Chris Asteriou: Smooth Natural Billiard with Silver (1036/21) Tobacco Pipe

Chris Asteriou's shaping style reflects a deep appreciation for pipe-making history and design aspects of vintage pipes, but within that aesthetic, the Greek carver boasts a broad range of styles, enjoying classic English shaping cues as much as retro Danish designs. His Billiard renditions in particular exhibit that breadth of appreciation, with some catering to the more stolid, robust shaping of English Billiards, while others, like this piece, offer a more sleek, svelte aesthetic, akin to renditions from Danish makers.

Group 3 in size, this Billiard proffers an exceptionally lightweight and comfortable balance, poising its bowl on the end of a streamlined shank-and-stem combination. Said bowl is softly rounded and subtly tapered toward the rim, a common design characteristic of Danish-style Billiard, and it's canted forward just enough to maintain visual balance in profile. Chris fashions all of his silverwork himself, and the shank bears that engineering acumen with a sterling silver army mount fitted to a hand-crafted, ebonite stem. Stunning shaping then meets immaculate briar, the stummel pristine enough to be finished naturally with only oil and wax, and it displays a perfect cross-grain pattern with birdseye along the flanks. It's a flawless pipe from shaping and engineering to finish and grain.