Ser Jacopo: Smooth Bent Apple with Silver (L1) (B) Tobacco Pipe

Founded in 1982 by Giancarlo Guidi, Ser Jacopo has built a reputation on crafting high-quality briars that are renowned for their robust proportions and playful shaping cues. The Italian atelier's style has since defined the Pesaro style of pipe making, each of their pipes imbued with a sense of character and reflecting the whimsical creativity that went into crafting them. Though Guidi passed away in 2012, his legacy lives on not only in the pipes he crafted, or the company he founded, but in the language of design that he helped to pioneer. The Italian workshop's Delecta series is defined by its stylized shank end and stem base that often incorporates a combination of silver, acrylic, and briar. A swift, crisply defined flare out to the face typifies the shank end, while the stem's tenon or base is often extended to provide a separation between the stummel and stem and showcase more of its accenting material. Here, the stylized mount adorns a plump and pert bent Apple that's remarkably compact at less than five inches long, its small footprint granted a good bit of weight to offer a reassuring feel in hand. The curves of the bowl are charming and supple, its walls resting atop a slightly lifted heel which pushes its curvaceous flanks into prominence. Though the transition isn't cheeked, it still manages to maintain the curvature of the bowl through the aft side, and it leads to a lifting shank paired to a demurely curved stem of tapering black acrylic. Primed for comfortable smoking, the stummel here is dressed in a rich, warm, chestnut-hued stain, revealing handsome grain across the bowl and even the briar Delecta mount: all nicely contrasted by the stem's silver accent.