HS Studio Sandblasted “Sven Knudsen” Bent Stack 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.

This is a very interesting HS Studio pipe. While a lot of the new old stock pipes we’ve listed from that make were clearly heavily influenced by “Danish” style pipe making, this one is, surprisingly, perhaps the most “Danish” of all of them so far. While many pipe makers, HS Studio included, often create renditions of the most famous shapes associated with Denmark and wider Scandinavia, such as the blowfish, the volcano, the Ramses, fancy freehands, and so on, this one instead looks back to a somewhat simpler time, in the very early years of “Danish design.” The sweeping, graceful curvature, the tall, stacked bowl, the featherweight stature, and even the modest, brown sandblast finishing strongly evoke the pipes of Pibe-Dan (later Pipe Dan) or the first creations of the W.O. Larsen workshop. One particular artisan who comes to mind is Sven Knudsen, with this HS Studio reminding of his “duck” variations, as well as the shape “48” bent Dublin made when he was W.O. Larsen’s first foreman. These days I’m noticing a number of artisans returning to those “neoclassical” designs of the first great wave of post-war Scandinavian pipe making, and it’s certainly a welcome sight.

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

Details:

Length: 5.7″ / 144.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.72 / 18.28mm

Bowl Depth: 1.95″ / 49.53mm

Weight: 0.9oz / 28g