Abe Herbaugh Sandblasted Squat Tomato Sitter with Musk Ox Horn (Estate)

Abe Herbaugh is, at present, one of America’s foremost artisan pipe makers, and that doesn’t look like it’ll change any time soon. By the time he left high school, Herbaugh already had something of an informal education in woodworking thanks to his father, though his mastery of wood, metals, and a variety of other materials can also be traced to the career that he originally pursued as an adult. One of his first jobs was as a guitar repairman in his home state of West Virginia, and as anyone who’s ever cared for a six-string in their life will tell you, that’s not something you leave to an amateur. Having excelled at guitar repair, Herbaugh subsequently graduated to becoming a fully-fledged luthier. Now he was not only repairing instruments, but also building them, from the shaping of the body, to the milling and slotting of the fretboard, to the wiring of pickups and other electronic systems.

Unsurprisingly, Herbaugh also turned out to be a natural at pipe making when he turned his attention to it in the 2000s. In that regard, his education was a mixture of studying and replicating estate pipes from his local tobacconist, and spending time with a few of the seasoned pipe makers in the contemporary American scene, such as Premal Chheda and Steve Norse. At the end of the 2000s, he began attending shows, and not long after, his work was attracting so much attention and acclaim that he was able to step away from his work as a luthier and become a full-time pipe maker. Many aspiring artisans have come and gone in the time since; Herbaugh, on the other hand, hasn’t gone anywhere but up.

Horn is a quite common material in pipe making, and has been for centuries, whether in the form of mouthpieces or simply for decoration. In the case of the latter, however, different kinds of horn can be used to very different effect. Abe Herbaugh is particularly fond of the musk ox variety, one that is notable for its rippling contours and pearly sheen. Here we find it applied to one of his signature, Scandi-style squat tomatoes, offsetting a dark, ring grain sandblast finish and black ebonite mouthpiece.

The condition is very good. Minor inner rim darkening and a small nick in the accent’s underside. This pipe comes with its original sleeve.

Details:

Length: 4.8″ / 121.9mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.18″ / 29.97mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g