Ser Jacopo: Spongia Rusticated Bent Billiard (R2) (E) (Maxima Maxima Maxima Maxima Maxima) Tobacco Pipe

When it comes to the Italian school of shaping, pipes tend to be larger than those of the Anglo-French tradition and are often more drastic in their relative proportions between bowl and shank. In their Maxima series, though, Ser Jacopo takes all of that to the extreme. Enlarged to quintuple Maxima size, this bent Billiard maintains the classic shape's traditional form overall but has been rendered from a massive block of briar. The bowl is tall and more than palm-filling, with almost three and half inches of height to its thick walls and containing a chamber within of more than two and a half inches in depth. The shank and saddle stem are also quite robust, with the combination taking on a slight taper through to the base, the stem itself demurely curved for comfortable smoking. The wealth of briar here is dressed in a natural finish and craggy rustication courtesy of the Italian workshop's Spongia series, offering a wealth of texture for the hands to appreciate as they cradle this more than half pound of briar.