Pete Prevost: Smooth Acorn (BELL) (3) Tobacco Pipe

Pete Prevost boasts an illustrious career as a pipe maker, though especially as an artisan maker, garnering acclaim through his sophisticated, often Danish-styled works rooted in the American school of design. This Acorn is an especially unique piece from Prevost, being a shape he's made many times before, though the outline of this particular pipe showcases a distinguished form that sets it apart from others of its same family. The transition is wide, and it gives way to a thick, ovoid shank that flares as it reaches out and curls to meet a sleek saddle stem of black vulcanite. The shank itself boasts a good bit of substance, especially thanks to its enhanced compression: lending the oval shape some added breadth that keeps this pipe muscular from the smoker's perspective. Said shank's flare additionally broadens through both the flanks and the top and underside, further cementing its musculature while keeping the overall weight and dimensions of the composition compact.

Up front, the bowl stands on a swiftly upturned heel, its sweeping gesture not quite reaching a lift, but still thrusting the walls into prominence. These walls flare out and subtly cant forward as they reach to a high-set waistline, the apex of the flare surrounded with plump curves that rise higher at the flanks than the fore or aft: creating some organic asymmetry across the rim. This organicism and asymmetry are both enhanced by a crown of craggy plateau, its rugged peaks delightfully contrasting the supple curvature of the bowl's walls. Dressed in a warm, rich stain, this pipe showcases stunning grain, grain stunning enough to have earned Prevost's nigh-unobtainable BELL grade, his highest grade, and one he marks with a serial number: making this the third such pipe he's ever crafted. Dressed in a warm, rich stain, flame wraps the bowl and shank, with the top and underside of this shank boasting broad swaths of birdseye, the grain fantastically complementing this piece's stunning shaping.