Michael Parks VI Smooth Asymmetric Poker w/ Mammoth Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

What Canada lacks in quantity in pipe makers it most certainly makes up for in quality. From the Blatter family, to Julius Vesz, to Todd Bannard, Stephen Downie, Eugene Miscoi, and others, Canada continues to be home to a significant number of extremely talented and acclaimed artisan carvers. Among the most acclaimed is Michael Parks of Bowmanville, Ontario. As a teenager, Parks was introduced to pipe smoking by his grandfather, which also served as a gateway to a lifelong admiration for classic pipe shapes. Not long after, Parks undertook college studies in fine art, which would have a similarly formative effect on his approach to pipe design. Mentored by Lee Von Erck, Parks emerged in the early 2000s as nothing less than a pipe making sensation, equally renowned for his immaculate renditions of 20th century staples and his unique, sculptural pieces, ranging from the delicate and ornate to the bombastic and avant-garde. Parks has held onto his position in the upper echelons of artisan pipes for many years now, with no sign of this changing anytime soon.

Michael Parks has an impressive range, and though he’s especially fond of the classics, he does make quite a few pipes that are quite outside of the ordinary. This one is certainly an example of the latter—doubly so, in fact, as it is one of only two renditions of this particular shapes Parks has made across his entire career (the other being a sandblasted variation). It’s a shape that has to be viewed from multiple angles to fully take in: viewed in profile, it strikes as a particularly stout poker sitter, though a change in aspect reveals that, instead of a cylindrical or conical form, it is, instead, elliptic and slightly asymmetrical. The bowl is a little bit like the old Stanwell shape “20” Dublin, except with its broad flanks and narrow fore and aft descending straight down to a flat base. The base itself is worth noting, as it, along with the shank end, is capped with fossilized mammoth ivory. The claret-toned straight grain around the bowl’s sides is almost impossibly perfect—though, for a Parks, that’s far less unusual. As for the grade, this one is a grade VI, which, at the time this one was made (2010), was the highest any Parks pipe could achieve. It would not be until 2012 that a grade VII was introduced.

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

Details:

Length: 7″ / 177.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.88 / 22.35mm

Bowl Depth: 1.74″ / 44.19mm

Weight: 2.5oz / 72g