Tom Eltang: Smooth Horn (Snail) Tobacco Pipe

No two Tom Eltang Horns are alike, and yet, I haven't personally encountered one that I immediately didn't recognize as (or at least strongly suspect to be) the work of the famous carver. This has something to do with that degree of outstretched gesture, making for a sprawling, gestural form in profile, coupled with his tendency to use the historically grain-following form to showcase some of his finest briar. In this Horn, of course, we find both of those things.

An Oliphant-like number, this Snail grade piece wears a pair of opposing facets at the left and right flanks. These facets, together with the bowl's rim, are the only planes on this entire briar to showcase cross-grain. The rest: birdseye. And lots of it. The entirety of the underside and top are both replete with the stuff, in dense, vividly-highlighted whorls that practically dance on the pipe's surface. Seriously magnificent.