Sandblasted Cherrywood with Cumberland Stem (Calypso) 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 eye is immediately drawn to the rim of this piece, which is heavily concave and kicks upward from aft to fore. Both the fore wall and the aft wall, the latter of which kicks up into the brief briar shank, have significantly concave curves to make the bowl easy to grip. The bowl is sandblasted with a dark stain, allowing flame grain and growth rings to simultaneously grace the walls with great visibility. The stubby shank sits near the top of the aft of the bowl rather than near the bottom and holds a tapered, lightly arched cumberland stem. Gaudenzi's shaping of this piece is intriguing, and as with all Cherrywoods, this piece serves as a fine desk pipe thanks to its sitting ability.