Sixten Ivarsson

In the lengthy canon of contemporary artisan pipe making, Discussion is often centered around the Danish masters and their revolutionary reinterpretation of the centuries-old art. There's no question as to the impact and importance of these individuals, especially with regard to Sixten Ivarsson, whom many credit with kickstarting the artisan pipe-making movement, though those who came after him ... Read More

As we've discussed in previous installments of The History of Pipe Design series, briar pipe making began in France before spreading to England, Italy, and elsewhere across Europe — including Denmark. English pipes in particular were popular among Danish pipe smokers through the initial decades of the ... Read More

Alongside classic English and French pipemakers, Stanwell holds a significant place in pipe history. Due to the briar shortages of WWII, and the chaos that overwhelmed both France and Britain — as well as Italy from where a large quantity of briar was sourced — Danish pipe smokers couldn't obtain pipes from England ... Read More

So far we've discussed the origin of these correspondence and briefly touched on one or two folios, highlighting their importance in the history of the modern tobacco pipe. After scanning hundreds of blueprints, drawings, and letters, however, I noticed there was one shape that appeared more frequently than others in Sixten's commission requests and sketches. It was his "Peewit" shape. ... Read More

You have probably never heard of Bjørn Hoffmann, and there are a number of reasons this could be. Personally, I was entirely unaware of this pipemaker until Sykes turned up at the office with a plastic bag full of letters and sketches. In his recent blog, Sykes explained that these documents once belonged to the great Sixten Ivarsson, but they had long been sitting, unread for ages, in his granddaughter's attic. ... Read More

Perhaps five or six years ago, when Nanna Ivarsson first told me that she had piles and piles of Sixten Ivarsson's old drawings and correspondence, my heart skipped a beat. While my career has been entirely in the pipe and tobacco business, I'm educated as an historian and I'm the child of a professor and a university librarian. The very idea of such a trove a pipe history sitting in an attic somewhere set me aquiver. ... Read More