Smooth Tomato with Silver (Set Special) Tobacco Pipe

Paolo Becker and Massimo Musico crafted Becker & Musico pipes together, with Paolo on the lathe and Massimo focusing on mouthpieces and bands, until 2002 when Paolo turned to crafting pipes under his own name. Today, Massimo continues to make pipes under the Foundation brand, with a particular focus on slight deviations from typical Anglo-French shapes.

This Musico Tomato is particularly squat even for the Tomato shape, the bowl coming in at a depth of just under an inch. Attractive flame grain reaches up to meet birdseye around the rim, an orientation shared on the sides of the brief, muscular shank that backs into a large, cylindrical accent of silver. The stem behind the silver is gradually tapered vulcanite with a relatively straight underside and lightly arcing topside as it stretches back to the bit. It's a lovely work of pipe making on Musico's part that dispatches its curves in all the right places, providing a remarkable sense of motion among some fine grain.