Winslow: 50th Anniversary Smooth with Silver (044) Tobacco Pipe

Sinuous and lithe, this pipe from Poul Winslow celebrates a special anniversary: Poul's 50th year of pipemaking. The nomenclature has been laser etched and filled with a gold-colored medium, and includes the years of Poul's pipemaking career so far: 1969-2019. 1969 was also the year Led Zeppelin released its first album. I'm not saying Poul Winslow is the Jimmy Page of pipemaking, but I am alluding to the coincidence in a rhetorical ploy to say Poul Winslow is the Jimmy Page of pipemaking. Anyway, Poul Winslow, who has been called the Jimmy Page of pipemaking (see what I did there?), is indeed a genius in his medium, which, to be clear, is briar. He's also an artist, a painter, and we needn't follow that path now, but his artistic sensibilities are certainly evident in his pipes, which tend to be colorful. This piece is more sedate, with a light contrast stain highlighting excellent vertical grain. The mount on the end of the shank is made of creamy acrylic and bright sterling silver, and a high, free-flowing transition imbues the piece with a Horn aesthetic. The domed, undulating rim is an ocean of cresting birdseye, with more birdseye aligned on the heel. Grain, form, creativity, and execution: everything a pipesmoker could want.