Makers and Artists

Vladimir Grechukin is an artisan I have a difficult time finding another to compare to. The closest, I would say, would be Paolo Becker. Both are pipemakers who were apprenticed in a traditional approach to the craft ... Read More

Pete Prevost is an American pipe maker living in Nashville, Tennessee. Formerly a touring musician, Pete dived head-first into pipe making. It served him well, as he is now the Executive VP and Director of Production at BriarWorks International ... Read More

Ernie Markle is a great example of the new movement in American artisanal pipes. Now working full-time from his home in Pheonix, AZ, he's really cultivated his craft over the last few years. But what separates Ernie from other modern American carvers? ... Read More

If you read about Syke's recent visit to the Savinelli factory, you know about some of the old, discontinued Punto Oro sandblasts he managed to acquire. What Sykes didn't want to talk about at the time was another lot of Punto Oros he picked up during the same trip, unseen by us before now — even as estates, and discontinued for at least a decade. Yep, Punto Oro Churchwardens. ... Read More

A month ago, I visited Savinelli for the first time in a few months. Rather jet-lagged, having arrived in Italy the day before from China, I was making small-talk, catching up with Sonia Rivolta, Savinelli's CEO, and Luca Fontana, the export manager, and glancing through the pipes of interest list (which is the appellation I have mentally appended to the document that is perennially presented) that they'd laid out in front of me. ... Read More

Let's face it: we've seen a lot of Dunhills over the years. We've handled everything from dainty little Group 1 Apples to giant Magnums, and almost everything in between. Almost. ... Read More

Ser Jacopo is one of the quirkiest marques in the Pesaro school, pressing the whimsical aesthetic even further beyond the style's already playful manner. From the massive and reaching, to the lithe and sinuous, to the insane and seemingly impossible, there's simply no mistaking a Ser Jacopo pipe. Here's a quick look at just what makes the marque so recognizable and innovative: ... Read More

In the beginning, there was France. Then England, and Italy — then sometime later Denmark, followed about a generation later by Japan. Then suddenly things were sprouting up in Russia and various points of Eastern Europe, then Greece and China. Thus goes the (very) abbreviated history of briar pipes. ... Read More

With the recent release of their Craftsman line, Peterson sought to highlight the long-standing tradition of excellence evident in each finished product — a legacy spanning 150 years. The series stands as the epitome of the Peterson design manifest, an interweaving of the past with the modern, but in reality, each and ... Read More

While Smio Satou trained in the classical Danish hand made pipe tradition, he has very much charted his own path as a pipe maker over the past couple of decades. He went, with Fukuda, who still makes Tsuge Ikebana pipes, to Denmark on two occasions in the 1970s and worked at Tsuge in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the ... Read More