Savinelli Autograph: Autograph Smooth Freehand Sitter (8) (6mm) Tobacco Pipe

Savinelli's Autograph is the Italian marque's limited-production, handmade series, utilizing specially aged extra-extra plateau briar and being crafted by only three of the brand's most experienced carvers. From start to finish, the process of crafting a single one of these pipes is handled by a single one of these veteran craftsmen, the series providing them with design freedom and allowing them to express their personal creativity. This Freehand is an expressive piece from the brand, and it's an apt sitter, complete with a flattened panel at the heel to allow for easy resting whenever necessary. This flat heel supports the bowl as its walls flare out dramatically to an expansive rim, one surrounded by a frim ridge that follows its cresting arc from the transition to the fore. The trajectory of this rim's ridge urges the pipe forward and underscores the bowl's own forward cant, affording the composition a fluid sense of organicism. Out back, the wide transition gives way to a fairly short, lifting shank met by a stylized stem of tapering black acrylic, whose two ring-like expansion rings balance some of this pipe's visual weight. Dressed in a warm, light stain, this pipe has been graded an "8," one of the Autograph line's highest grades, thanks to its dense displays of flame grain across both flanks of the stummel.