Former: Smooth Horn with Horn Tobacco Pipe

With 60 years of pipe-making experience, Hans "Former" Nielsen is revered as a master of the Danish tradition and remains a veritable living legend. Nielsen's shaping, engineering, and finishing have become standards within the industry, with many younger pipe makers traveling to his workshop in Denmark to glean from his years of knowledge and experience. When he was just 15, Former was hired to repair pipes in Poul Rasmussen's Copenhagen pipe shop, and it was a transformative experience for Nielsen, allowing him to study a pipe's internal engineering and learning how it could be improved. He would then go on to work for W.Ø. Larsen, refining his skills, overseeing quality control, and training new carvers that joined the workshop. It was during that time that Nielsen built a workshop in his home and has been crafting Danish classics ever since with this Horn rendition reflecting that tradition.

It's a gestural and remarkably dynamic Horn interpretation, the bowl's forward-urging stance accentuated by the underside's sweeping, consistent curve. While it's a bold, muscular rendition, the way the shank effortlessly leads into the bowl and the stem's subtle downturn help create a smooth-flowing profile. The grain on display is simply sublime, Former having shaped this briar block perfectly to maximize its potential. Whorls of birdseye dominate the bowl's near and far sides, with cross grain positioned across the flanks, highlighted by a vibrant contrast stain. Accenting the shank end is a creamy horn ferrule, with its subtle flare mirroring the bowl's gradual flare before transitioning to the trim and incredibly comfortable stem. The mouthpiece's smaller diameter in relation to the shank ensures the stummel remains the focal point, allowing for full appreciation of its beautiful grain and proportional balance.