Ed Burak Connoisseur Magnum Partially Rusticated Cavalier Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Known as the “dean of American pipe designers” Ed Burak was not a pipe-maker per se. Rather, Burak was someone who worked with the master carvers of his time to bring his distinct ideas of what a pipe could be to life. As the owner of the Connoisseur Pipe Shop, Burak designed freehand pipes so singularly representative of pipe-making as an artistic endeavor, that many of the resulting works ended up in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

It is an understatement to say that Ed Burak was a man way ahead of his time. While America had its fair share of excellent pipe makers during the course of his career, there were very few who were as innovative and unique in their compositions as Burak was. Back then, you’d have to go to the usual suspects—Denmark, Sweden, Japan, etc.—to find pipes that pushed the boundaries of their design quite like Burak. It would take until the last part of the 20th century and the early 2000s, during the great boom in American artisan pipe making, that his homegrown scene would truly catch up with him. This magnum cavalier, for example (and it is indeed a true cavalier, with a removable foot) shows off the brass instrument motif common to Burak’s designs, but it also looks to anticipate the distinct species of “samurai” volcano shapes seen in the work of Todd Johnson and others. It is quite remarkable and, like so many of Burak’s pipes, probably belongs in a museum (which, of course, is where many of them ended up). It is also a testament to the skills of the artisans Burak enlisted in realizing his vision, such as Joe Corteggione and Tony Passante, whose own pipe making legacies should not be forgotten.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original (though now quite flaked) bowl coating. There are a couple of very minor, natural flaws in the briar itself, but that’s common for Burak’s pipes—like a true artist, he understood that beauty is inseparable from the tiny imperfections that set it off.

 

Details:

Length: 7.5″ / 190.5mm

Bowl Width: 0.88 / 22.35mm

Bowl Depth: 1.90″ / 48.26mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g