HS Studio Smooth “Gert Holbek” Polonius Horn 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.

While at first glance this HS Studio might look like one of Chris Kelly’s excellent Eldritch Viking Horn renditions, it instead has a much closer, and much older precedent, way back in the first decades of post-war Danish pipe making. That precedent would be the Polonius, a shape created by Gert Holbek during his time at Pibe-Dan (later Pipe Dan), as part of a series of designs named after Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Supple and low-slung, the Polonius is perhaps not as widely known as other historic shapes within post-war Scandinavian pipes, yet it is historic nonetheless, and one that many an artisan today will produce renditions of during their career. This one is not only faithfully executed, but also beautifully grained, with the briar’s patterning neatly following the contours of the bowl’s side profile.

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

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.72 / 18.28mm

Bowl Depth: 1.13″ / 28.70mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 44g