Smooth Brown Bent Billiard with Oak Tobacco Pipe

Ser Jacopo alum Simone Gaudenzi is well-trained in the Pesaro school of pipe making, which emphasizes clean lines and panache in design. Today, Gaudenzi crafts Valbruna pipes in the small town of Gabicce Mare on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, which plays an important role in the company's nomenclature: per Adriatic legend, Valbruna is a lost, sunken city like Atlantis. Gaudenzi ages the briar for his pipes, which are produced in limited quantities. True to his maritime roots, he uses Jellyfish to identify levels of quality.

The most notable feature of this bent Billiard from Valbruna is the grain — flame grain, that is, beautiful tendrils densely packed around the bowl that reach all the way to the rim from a small patch of birdseye at the pronounced heel. They're stained a rich brown and topped with a flat rim that is dressed in birdseye, while a very short shank and accent of light-brown oak finish the stummel. The stem, made of black acrylic, is teardrop-shaped before the tenon, rounded at the bottom before tapering to a wide bit, the only bend in this bent Billiard coming about halfway to the end of the stem and being very slight at that. Gaudenzi has done an excellent job of making the shape his own, giving this piece a profile much unlike the typical bent Billiard.