Pete Prevost Sandblasted Acorn w/ Boxwood Estate Briar Pipe, American Estates

Description

Pete Prevost is is an American artisan and has been, since the 2000s, at the forefront of a veritable pipe making renaissance in the United States. As has been the case with a significant number of high-end carvers in that cohort, Prevost first studied pipe making under two of America’s undisputed giants, Jody Davis and Todd Johnson. He would also, ultimately, co-found the Tennessee-based BriarWorks company with Johnson, through which the two helped redefine the notion of a modern pipe factory (while nurturing the next generation of pipe makers in the process). When he isn’t tied up with his duties as the current president of BriarWorks, Prevost, continues to craft his solo, handmade pipes—though, as one might imagine, supply of the latter is frequently well outpaced by demand.

Just as in Denmark and Italy, American artisan pipe making is home to a great many “schools,” i.e., groups of pipe makers united by lineages of masters and apprentices, teachers and students, and so on. And, as is the case in pipe making schools elsewhere in the world, these lineages often express themselves in a shared fondness for certain shapes, finishes, materials, and the various other things that make up one’s pipe design philosophy. That Pete Prevost has made acorns of this variety is not surprising, nor is it surprising that he can make one so well. After all, Prevost studied under Todd Johnson, and Johnson himself studied under the legendary Lars Ivarsson, the man who more or less invented the genre of acorn designs this pipe belongs to (one could, if desired, go even further, as Lars was, of course, taught by his father, Sixten Ivarsson, another pioneer of modern acorn shapes). Like Johnson, Prevost’s acorn renditions typically scale down the length—along with some of the heft—that defined Lars Ivarsson’s, allowing the pipe to be lighter and more easily clenched. Another more “American” aspect to Prevost’s work in this instance is its intense, yet immaculate, sandblast finishing, with its ripe bowl almost bursting at its ring grain seams.

The condition is very good. Some inner rim darkening.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.62″ / 41.14mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g