C-Pipe Smooth Surfing Dublin w/ Boxwood Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Not unlike certain 20th century Western pipe making institutions, such as Charatan, Pibe-Dan, or WO Larsen, a number of workshops in China have emerged in the 21st century filled with artisans working under a single banner. This includes GH Zhang, Qi Pipe Studio, and C-Pipe. With C-Pipe, however, there is something of a difference. Founded by former architect and lifelong pipe collector YiGang Wang, C-Pipe is a workshop of around a dozen artisans, most of whom originally came to pipe making from fields such as fine art and industrial design. While there are clear influences on C-Pipe’s output from various post-war schools, the workshop’s style is as varied as the individuals who work there. The resulting pipes reflect a synthesis of collective and individual creative endeavors, following a model closer to the ones pursued by Scandinavian post-war institutions, and which made artisan pipes what they are today.

So-called “surfing” shapes seem almost like the happy matrimony of certain Danish and English approaches to freehand pipes. On the one hand, there are the distinctly wide-shanked designs of figures such as Sixten Ivarsson, Poul Ilsted, and Tom Eltang; and on the other, there are the “x and saucer” designs of Charatan. This “Surfing Dublin” from C-Pipe adds a little extra from another Danish freehand tradition, that of the “fancy,” incorporating gnarled surfaces of plateaux burl at its rim and shank end, along with an ornate ebonite mouthpiece spliced with boxwood. It’s a great looking design and, being the shape it is, it’s got an excellent hand-feel too.

 

Details:

Length: 5.9″ / 149.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.82 / 20.82mm

Bowl Depth: 1.07″ / 27.17mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g