American Smoking Pipe Company Christmas 1987 Smooth Calabash Estate Briar Pipe, American Estates

Description

The American Smoking Pipe Company was founded in 1978 by artisans Mark Tinsky and Curt Rollar. Tinsky and Rollar’s venture was part of a new wave of North American hand made pipe making that emerged in the 1970s and ’80s, including artisan carvers such as Mike Butera, Tim West, Elliot Nachtwalter and Jorg Jemelka. Despite the name, American Smoking Pipe Co. was not a factory or large scale operation, but a simple pipe workshop and name shared between friends. Rollar departed the company in 1990, after which Tinsky remained at the reins into the 2000s, before selling his pipes under his own name.

Upon the suggestion of John B. Hayes, a close friend and retailer of the American Smoking Pipe Company, Mark Tinsky and Curtis Rollar began making an annual, limited edition “Christma”s pipe in 1983. These pipes were unique designs (though a couple would later be reissued as catalog shapes), with a new one being released each year right up until the present—as Tinsky has continued this tradition even after going solo. As the number of Christmas pipes made was subject to fluctuations in demand and the communications constraints of a pre-Internet era, it’s now quite difficult to get one’s hands on earlier editions, especially those of the 1980s and 1990s, though luckily we’ve had a handful of them come in just recently.

This one is the first to make it to the site and, quite fittingly, it was, per Tinsky, “the most successful selling Christmas Pipe of all time,” with around 150 pieces in total made and sold. It was also—again, per Tinsky—“one of the most difficult to make” of the Christmas Pipes. The design was Curt Rollar’s and was based on a non-Christmas pipe he had made during the previous year. However, when it came to making the 1987 Christmas Pipe, Tinsky and Rollar deviated slightly from their more typical approach to manufacture, working on each pipe together, rather than separately. Those familiar with American Smoking Pipe Co. pipes will know that the ones from the Tinsky-Rollar years are usually stamped with an “MT” or a “CR,” reflecting which of the two crafted that particular pipe. For the 1987 Christmas pipe, on the other hand, responsibilities were shared between them, right down to shaping each pipe’s bowl.

As for the design itself, it’s a little like a calabash, with a tall bowl, a “cap”-like rim, and a slightly Danish, “pinched” stem. Tinsky and Rollar dubbed it a “cauldron,” and though the two did end up creating a somewhat similar shape for the American Smoking Pipe Co. catalog (which is now the “5”), the exact design of the 1987 Christmas pipe has, so far, not been repeated.

The condition is great. Some minor inner rim darkening.

Details:

Length: 5.7″ / 144.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.94 / 23.87mm

Bowl Depth: 1.71″ / 43.43mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g