Tom Eltang: Smooth Bent Billiard with Mammoth (Snail) Tobacco Pipe

Perhaps the most iconic pipe shape, the bent Billiard has remained a pipe-chart staple for the better part of a century, exhibiting a reserved form that's wonderfully balanced and extremely practical, the defining S-curve offering a comfortable smoking posture. In the Danish tradition of pipe making, the Billiard shape often takes on a much softer, more rounded aspect, tapering toward the rim more so than English and French makers would fashion, and the shank usually flaring toward the stem.

Danish artisan Tom Eltang has enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, and his portfolio boasts highly intricate designs as well as those of much more reserved, classic appeal, and this bent Billiard falls into that latter category. It's a textbook example of the Danish bent Billiard: The bowl is soft and supple in hand, and the curve of the heel flows seamlessly into the shank's upward curl before being balanced out by the stem's recurve. At the shank end, Tom has fashioned an accent of mammoth to contrast the walnut contrast stain, and the briar's immaculate flame grain pattern is wonderfully defined. A stunning interpretation of an age-old shape, this piece has earned Eltang's superlative Snail grade.