Werner Mummert: Sandblasted Deco Poker Tobacco Pipe

One of the most innovative pipe makers working today, Werner Mummert fashions traditional shapes with some consistency, but he's perhaps better known for his experimental, boundary-pushing designs. Even when considering his more avant-garde work, it's important to point out that his style isn't simply experimentation for experimentation's sake. No, underneath his unique style is a bedrock of high-quality engineering and an understanding of what makes a pipe functional as well as handsome.

Though fairly traditional in terms of shaping, this Poker showcases Mummert's eclectic finishing work and eccentric style. Shape-wise, this piece features a tall, cylindrical bowl that stands at the fore of a trim shank and a slender saddle stem. The bowl here is tall and muscular, its thick walls rising from a flat, sure-sitting heel and terminating at a flat rim. The shank-and-stem arrangement keeps the form sleek in profile and lightweight in hand, its streamlined build additionally emphasizing the bowl's posture and height. Dressing this piece is Mummert's colorful Deco finish, which covers the sandblasted stummel in various technicolor hues.