Nording

Erik Nording, spelled Nørding in Danish, was born in Copenhagen. He learned the blacksmith trade as a teenager and studied engineering, and it was his skill with machines that led him to pipes. He built pipe making machinery for a Copenhagen repairman named Skovbo, and the two went into business together as SON, short for Skovbo og Nørding. By the mid 1960s the company carried his own name, and the freehand wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s helped make Nording one of the best known names in Danish pipe making. Poul Ilsted, Peder Jeppesen and Søren Erik Andersen all began their careers working for him.
Nording tobacco pipes range from flowing freehands and graded Handmades to the Compass line and the Hunting Pipe series, released every year since 1995 with a new animal as its theme. This page brings together every Nording and Erik Nording pipe we list, along with SON pipes and the Eriksen and Aalborg seconds. Prized as smoking pipes and by collectors, Nording pipes are listed here whenever they come to us.

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Nording Tobacco Pipe FAQ

Erik Nording, or Erik Nørding in Danish, is a pipe maker born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He started as a blacksmith at age 15, and his mother urged him to study engineering so he could one day run the family's razor blade and garden tool factory. While still in school, he built pipe making machinery for a Copenhagen pipe repairman named Skovbo, and when Skovbo could not pay for it, the two started making pipes together under the name SON. When the partnership ended, Nording kept the company, and by the mid 1960s it carried his own name. Poul Ilsted, Peder Jeppesen and Søren Erik Andersen are among the carvers who began their careers working for him, and he holds a Guinness record for the world's largest smokable pipe. In 2025, at age 86, he scaled back production to make a few high grade handmade pipes on his own.

Yes. Nording is the company Erik Nording founded and named after himself, so a pipe listed as Nording and one listed as Erik Nording come from the same Danish maker. That is why we keep them together on this one page. You will also find his early SON pipes from the Skovbo partnership here, along with Eriksen and Aalborg pipes, which Pipedia lists as seconds by Erik Nording.

The Hunting Pipe is an annual series that Erik Nording, a keen hunter, launched in 1995. A new pipe is released each year at the start of the hunting season, with a different animal inspiring its shape, finish and details. Nording asked Mogens Andersen, one of Denmark's finest wildlife illustrators, to draw the first hunting pipe, and each new Hunting Pipe comes in a tube with a drawing and a short description of that year's animal. Hunting Pipes we have listed include the 1998 Beaver, 2000 Wild Boar, 2001 Mallard, 2003 Deer, 2004 Cobra, 2007 Elk and 2023 Black Swan. The series has long been popular with collectors.

Freehands are the heart of the Nording line. In his Pipedia interview, Erik Nording explained that his freehands were roughed out on a shaping machine he modified with airplane parts, then given their own shapes on sanding discs and finished in a range of colors with vulcanite stems. Early Nording freehands were graded A, B, C and D through Extra, the top grade, and a less expensive F grade came later. Handmades get more individual attention and better grain, with acrylic mouthpieces, and they carry number grades. The Handmades we have listed run from Grade 11 to Grade 20, Erik's highest grade. Freehand lines we have listed include the Signature, Spruce, Moss and Spiral.

The Compass is one of Nording's newer lines, pairing a wooden poker bowl with a metal shank, and in some versions a metal casing around the bowl. It grew out of Erik Nording's long interest in alternative materials, which has also brought aluminum, porcelain and high grade nylon into pipes like the Keystone and the Shorty. The Compass pipes we have listed were pokers in smooth and rusticated finishes, and all of them arrived unsmoked.

MBSD lists estate Nording pipes as they come to us from pipe smokers and collectors, and most of those we have listed so far arrived unsmoked. Each one is listed with photos, measurements and condition notes, and smoked pipes are cleaned and restored first. New pipes go up on the site nightly at 9 PM ET, and availability changes, so check this page regularly. To see the week's highlights every Monday, sign up for our newsletter.

Yes, we buy Nording and Erik Nording pipes, from a single pipe to a whole collection. Cash offers are 50% of the current retail price, or 60% in store credit. To sell, fill out the quote form on our We Buy Smoking Pipes page. To trade toward your next pipe, use the form on our pipe trade-in page. For U.S. sellers, we can send a prepaid shipping label and deduct its cost from your quote, and we buy from sellers outside the U.S. too. Our guide on how to pack and ship a pipe collection shows how to box them safely. You will hear back with an itemized quote within 3 to 5 business days after your pipes arrive. Once you accept, payment goes out right away by check, PayPal or Zelle.

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