Poul Winslow Crown 300 Smooth Stack Poker Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

As is often the case with the greats of Danish pipe making, the story of Poul Winsløw begins as one of a master and an apprentice. That master was none other than Preben Holm; the apprentice was a young Winsløw. Holm held Winsløw in especial regard, with the latter ending up as the former’s head assistant in the Preben Holm workshop. After Holm’s untimely passing, Winsløw went solo, and after surviving the slump in the Danish pipes market in the 1980s and early 1990s, he emerged as one of Denmark’s—and the world’s—premier freehand pipe makers.

In his letter-graded (A, B, C, etc.) pipes, Poul Winsløw tends to add more by way of color and decorative elements to his pipes. In the Crown series, however, whose name appears to come from his former mentor, Winsløw’s designs are—quite fittingly—stripped down to the fundamentals of the Danish freehand. In other words, the latter show off Winsløw’s mastery of form and grain purely through the mediums of briar (for the bowl) and acrylic (for the mouthpiece).

In the case of this one, the design is a little more traditional than many pipes in Winsløw’s output, though it’s also a shape that he appears to be quite fond of, to the extent that it was used for one of his anniversary pipes some years ago. The form is essentially a large, stacked, poker sitter, combining workhorse practicality with nicely grained Danish hand-craftsmanship.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.97″ / 50.03mm

Weight: 2.2oz / 64g