David Huber: Smooth 10th Anniversary (7/10) Tobacco Pipe

David Huber pursued pipe making full time in 2014 after years expanding his tooling skills and craftsmanship acumen. In the years to follow, the American artisan sought tutelage from Jeff Gracik and other carvers among the most revered in the world, including spending over a month in Denmark to learn firsthand from the likes of Nanna Ivarsson, Former, and Tom Eltang. From hand-whittling a pipe in his kitchen without any prior craftsmanship experience, to traveling across the world to learn from some of history's greatest artisan pipe makers, Huber's pipe-making career has been an unexpected narrative and a testament to his devotion to the craft and innate desire to improve and grow as an artist, and 2024 marks his 10th year as a pipe maker — a milestone commemorated by a special selection of 10 pipes, each stamped "10 Years" and serialized out of the total 10 crafted.

Though all designed from the same base shape, each 10th Anniversary pipe prioritizes the individual briar blocks' specific attributes, resulting in differing details and unique intricacies across the collection. Moreover, Huber utilized 10 of his best and oldest briar — well-aged blocks that he's hand-selected over the past decade and set aside for a special project such as this. Huber's 10th Anniversary shape falls between a bent Dublin and Acorn design, reflecting his personal aesthetic of combining his own design sensibilities with design cues pioneered by historic Danish and Japanese pipe makers before him.

This particular 10th Anniversary piece is serialized as seven of 10, and it's founded upon a parabolic undercurve through the shank, heel, and bowl's fore that's contrasted by the smooth, inset curve of the transition. The shank flares gradually to a plateau-covered face to match the rim, and Huber allowed the natural orientation of the plateau to influence the angle of the shank face for a touch of asymmetry and individualism — an aspect he mirrored through the shaping of the hand-cut stem's expansion ring. Such a design cue coheres the stem into the overall composition and harmonizes the stem with the shaping of the briar. Dressed in a delightful contrast stain, the smooth briar delights with sweeping tendrils of flame grain that align beautifully with the lines of the bowl and shank. It's a remarkable piece and one worthy of celebrating a decade of David Huber pipes.