Sandblasted Zulu with Ebonite Stem (Two Jellyfish) 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.

Gaudenzi awarded this uniquely-shaped Zulu a pair of Jellyfish and gave it a shank that, instead of arcing gradually, comes to a dead stop about halfway through and turns downward before fading into the tapered and lightly bent stem of Ebonite. The bowl up front is relatively typical of the Zulu — conical, and canted well forward, but also quite deep and topped with a short spread of plateau. It's quite a large piece at 7.59 inches in length, with a nice heft at 0.136 pounds. The fascinating shape of the shank is a main draw here; it's unlike any I've seen before on a Zulu that has passed through our inventory.