C-Pipe Smooth Tomato w/ Bamboo Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Not unlike certain 20th century Western pipe making institutions, such as Charatan, Pibe-Dan, or WO Larsen, a number of workshops in China have emerged in the 21st century filled with artisans working under a single banner. This includes GH Zhang, Qi Pipe Studio, and C-Pipe. With C-Pipe, however, there is something of a difference. Founded by former architect and lifelong pipe collector YiGang Wang, C-Pipe is a workshop of around a dozen artisans, most of whom originally came to pipe making from fields such as fine art and industrial design. While there are clear influences on C-Pipe’s output from various post-war schools, the workshop’s style is as varied as the individuals who work there. The resulting pipes reflect a synthesis of collective and individual creative endeavors, following a model closer to the ones pursued by Scandinavian post-war institutions, and which made artisan pipes what they are today.

While it was once used as a means of bypassing a shortage in briar, bamboo has, since the end of the second world war, become a highly popular element in factory and artisan pipe design. This tomato from C-Pipe certainly hasn’t suffered from a lack of good briar, but it has employed bamboo as a means of crafting a very beautiful and highly ergonomic design. Squat and short in stature, the inherent lightness of bamboo has allowed the pipe to remain at around just 24 grams, making it incredibly easy to clench and to travel with. Its darker hues also offset the transition between the sheen of its lightly finished bowl and the hand-cut ebonite stem the design culminates in.

Details:

Length: 5.0″ / 127mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 0.80″ / 20.32mm

Weight: 0.8oz / 24g