Ed Burak Connoisseur Smooth Saxophone Sitter Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

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.

While Ed Burak’s designs covered a vast range of shapes and styles, two defining characteristics dominated his portfolio. One was large, tall bowls—often based on traditional Anglo-French shapes with exaggerated proportions—and the other was the steep curvatures they embodied—again, playing on exaggerated figures from briar staples. As a result, many of his designs were highly evocative of musical instruments, especially brass instruments such as horns and saxophones. This appears to be an example of the latter, and a veritable baritone at that. Tall, full-bent, and supremely stacked, the pipe also has the quite miraculous property of being a sitter, something that must have taken genuine skill to achieve. As was typical of Burak’s works, the pipe is more less natural in dress, with just a light waxed finish that lets the form itself do all of the talking.

This pipe is completely unsmoked. I note a couple of small, natural imperfections in the briar, though that was also quite typical for Burak, whose aesthetic vision thought little of minor blemishes in the pursuit of a grander ideal. In other words, no cause for concern.

Details:

Length: 5.9″ / 149.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 2.16″ / 54.86mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 48g