Don Carlos One Note Partially Rusticated Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

Don Carlos belongs to a historic lineage within Italian pipe making. The workshop was founded by Bruto Sordini (along with his wife Rosaria), who had previously made pipes for Mastro de Paja, where he also met Giancarlo Guidi. In 1981, Sordini and Guidi left Mastro de Paja to found their own workshop, Ser Jacopo. After years of making pipes at Ser Jacopo, Sordini once again departed to found a new venture, as he had ideas for shapes and styles that were quite different to Ser Jacopo’s established design philosophy. Sordini therefore created Don Carlos as a means of expressing this vision, resulting in pipes that are both quintessentially Italian, and bearing aesthetic that is wholly their own.

As with their Pesaro school, and indeed across high-grade Italian pipes more generally, the Sordinis have their own interpretation of the great national institution that is the stony, pebble-dash rusticated finish. With Don Carlos pipes, I’ve always found the approach to be a little sharper than others in the Italian scene, however, marrying the granularity of, for example, the Castello Sea Rock with the ruggedness of the early Caminetto business. Here we find it applied to a rather classical billiard rendition (including the hallmark forward cant of early briars), resulting in another happy marriage, this time of the old world and the new.

The condition is good overall. Some charring and finish fading on the rim.

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.84 / 21.33mm

Bowl Depth: 1.87″ / 47.49mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 44g