Bruno Nuttens Hand Made Smooth Egg w/ Horn (A) Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Starting out as a pipe restorer, Belgian artisan Bruno Nuttens moved onto producing his own pipes under the careful guidance of France’s most esteemed master pipe makers, Pierre Morel Jr. Nuttens’ first pipes creating relatively traditional pipes—often using carefully selected, decades-seasoned stummels from France’s historic Saint-Claude factories—but he would soon begin developing entirely handmade pipes in styles that seamlessly blended the old with the new. In the case of the latter, Nuttens was no doubt aided by time spent in the workshop of Danish legend Tom Eltang, where he further developed the skills and techniques behind his craft. Nuttens made such an impact in Denmark, in fact, that he’s been commissioned three times to develop the Stokkebye Pipe of the Year, a number rivaled only by Eltang himself. Today, Nuttens continues to craft high-grade pipes in a variety of styles, including his signature “Bing” and “Twiggy” shapes, all while mentoring students of his own, including artisans like Chris Herriot and Christophe Wolff.

Bruno Nuttens’ pipes are divided into two main categories: there are the Heritage series pipes, which are fashioned from seasoned, pre-turned Saint-Claude stummels, which Nuttens finishes, cuts stems for, and occasionally adds a little ornamentation, such as silver; and there are the Hand Made pipes, which are, made entirely from scratch, both in the carving of the bowl from briar blocks, to the cutting of the stems from ebonite rods. This pipe is one of the latter, and a very fine one at that. Taking the guise of a stacked, 1/8th bent egg, much in the vein of, say, early Danish carvers like Poul Rasmussen, Emil Chonowitsch, or Sven Knudsen, it is nonetheless lightweight, moderately compact and, perhaps above all, simply beautiful in form and finish. This is in no small part thanks to its deep contrast stain and wealth of bird’s-eye, as well as the inclusion of a tasteful, narrow band of horn inlaid in the pipe’s ebonite stem.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.73 / 18.54mm

Bowl Depth: 1.55″ / 39.37mm

Weight: 1.2oz / 36g