Silver Gray: Smooth Captain's Hawkbill Tobacco Pipe

In Silver Gray's Captain's Hawkbill, the American artisan riffs off the classic Italian form by endowing it with a diamond shank. In silhouette, the profile still features the design's conventionally unique recurve of stem and shank, but in hand the added ridgelines lend a dose of crisp rigidity that contrast with the supple lines of the bowl up front. In this particular piece, Silver has fashioned a forward-urging, Egg bowl, opting for a taller, slightly more slender posture compared to her more Ball-like renditions. As such, the bowl's canted orientation continues the implied momentum of the shank, keeping the profile dynamic while at the same time plump and palm-filling, the bowl's added height contributing to a comfortable thumb rest just behind.

Presentation-wise, this piece is adorned in a vivid contrast stain, highlighting windswept straight grain across the bowl and a forest of birdseye along the underside. The darker hues of the contrast combine naturally with the warm tones of the abbreviated, cumberland stem. The shaping of the mouthpiece here does well to showcase Silver's eye for detail and deft shaping, as the unique S-curve requires an exacting hand to seamlessly marry the stem to the shank end — a feat which Gray has executed to perfection.