Ryan Alden: Smooth Lovat (King of Clubs) Tobacco Pipe

Ryan Alden's primary goal is to highlight the beauty of the materials through its shaping and finishing, and he achieves that in each piece he makes, whether it draw from Danish, Italian, or English roots. This Lovat is one of the latter, a crisp and upright take on the old archetype, finished in a red-hued stain that brings to mind some of those older finishes of the English heyday. Rather than the deep saturation of those older stains, though, this one allows much of the underlying grain to peek through, showing off a wealth of birdseye and a bit of cross-grain alike.