Tsuge Bamboo Smooth Bent Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Tsuge is Japan’s largest and most internationally renowned pipe company, having been founded in 1936 by Kyoichiro Tsuge. In the 1970s, however, Tsuge himself was so impressed by the pipes coming out of Denmark, that he sent two of Tsuge’s own master pipe-makers, Kazuhiro Fukuda and Smio Satou, to hone their craft under the likes of Sixten Ivarsson and Jørgen Larsen. Upon their return, the Tsuge Ikebana workshop was established so that Fukuda, Satou, and their apprentices would have the means to create high-grade Japanese pipes to rival even those being made in Europe’s pipe-making capitals. Alongside the Ikebana workshop, Tsuge expanded its range of standard models to reflect the company’s new Scando-Japanese style, including designs by Danish icons such as Jorn Micke and Geert Holbek.

Though pipe makers in both the Anglo-French tradition (such as Dunhill or Kaywoodie) and the Scandinavian tradition (such as Stanwell or Bari) have used bamboo in pipe design since the early post-war years, it is quite fitting that a Japanese pipe company should also create pipes utilizing bamboo, given the plant’s geographical concentrations and special place in the history of Japan. This particular Tsuge, from the company’s Bamboo series, is an especially fine specimen, not only because of the quality of the briar used, but because of the precision employed in its construction. The subtle contours of the bamboo itself have been carried over into the design’s acrylic collars and the briar itself, allowing for a seamless transition. This, coupled with the bowl’s fantastic bird’s-eye grain patterns, makes for one fine example of Japanese craftsmanship.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating. It comes with its original box and sleeve.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.82 / 20.82mm

Bowl Depth: 1.4″ / 35.56mm

Weight: 1.3oz / 38g