HS Studio Partially Sandblasted Horn Freehand Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

If you’ve been keeping up with the world of Chinese pipe making, their artisan scene has been really taking off over the last decade. Like the great Danish institutions of old, many of these pipes are produced in artisan workshops such as Zhiputang, Qi Studio, and GH Zhang. Hong Kong’s HS Studio follows a similar model, with a team of expert in-house carvers crafting high-quality briars in a variety of styles.

Details:

There is a particular genre of contemporary designs that one might simply call “yet to be named.” They’re typically referred to as “freehands,” though they’re nothing like, say, the Nording Freehand lines, which lean heavily into the Danish Fancy approach. Instead, there’s a lot more thought into their shaping, with recurring figures and/or motifs, but a name hasn’t quite been settled on for them, as with, again, say, a blowfish. The best representatives of these designs today are master Danish artisans, such as Teddy Knudsen, Tonni Nielsen, Peter Heding, or Kent Rasmussen, or Geiger in Sweden, though there’s definitely a Japanese component to it, too. This pipe from HS Studio is another good candidate. It is something like a horn, but with additional lines that segment the bowl in unusual ways, while also setting up a clean, yet well paired, mixed finish. We’ll work out what to call it in time, I’m sure. For now, we’ll just have to enjoy it with our other faculties.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating. It comes with its original sleeve.

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.61″ / 40.89mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 44g