Cavicchi CCCC Smooth Freehand Egg Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

In 1974, after growing impatient waiting for a pipe he’d ordered, Claudio Cavicchi decided he would simply make his own pipe instead. The former farmer from Bologna, Italy, spent the next 15 years making pipes, until his work took off and received widespread acclaim. Cavicchi’s pipe-making exploits have only become more renowned in the decades since. Today, Cavicchi’s pipes hold a firm place at the top of an extraordinarily competitive Italian high-grades scene, being as carefully and meticulously crafted as they are beautiful. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Claudio himself is a world record holding slow smoking champion.

While Claudio Cavicchi is a pipe maker from Italy, I often wonder whether the label of “Italian” is befitting of Cavicchi pipes. I say this not to disparage them, but rather because Cavicchi is such a versatile artisan, and because the forms his pipes take are so diverse, attaching a national label to them seems to risk being reductive. Cavicchi can turn classical Lovats, billiards, pokers, and Dublins; he can also carve “Danish” shapes such as the Oliphant, the Elephant’s Foot, and the Peewit. And with each one, he pulls it off just as well as the most acclaimed representatives of that style or nation. This one another great example: it is a “freehand” in the post-war tradition, though rather than Scandinavia, it evokes the approaches to shaping taken by English freehand carvers. In other words, it’s closer to Charatan (and, by extension, James Upshall) than W.O. Larsen, especially with its slightly raised and recessed transition from bowl to shank. Had it been manufactured at Charatan, it would undoubtedly have attained something in the upper Supreme S grade bracket, if not higher. As it’s a Cavicchi, it was given a slightly more modest, four “C” appraisal.

The condition is great. Some minor wear to the rim, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.86 / 21.84mm

Bowl Depth: 1.75″ / 44.45mm

Weight: 2.2oz / 64g