Randy Wiley 1991 Patina 99 Magnum Smooth Horn Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Beginning his career as a pipe maker in the 1970s, Randy Wiley was a key figure in the new wave of American artisans in the late-20th century pipe scene—and still is today, five decades later. Though he does make some “traditional” pieces, he is, arguably America’s greatest living carver of “freehand” pipes, comparable to Denmark’s Preben Holm or Erik Nording in their prime. And, like Holm and Nording, Wiley has an array of signature finishes at his disposal, resulting in designs that occasionally border on the figural.

Horn shapes have been a staple of modern pipe making since at least the 1960s, when Sixten Ivarsson and Bo Nordh were making their iconic “Olifant,” or “Oliphant” pipes. On the other hand, horns have been a part of traditional [tobacco] pipe making for much longer, from the briar Zulu to meerschaum cheroot holders. Either way, pipe makers differ even more significantly when it comes to how they like their horn shapes. Ivarsson and Nordh favored paneled renditions; Tom Eltang tends toward rounded figures with a furling, “whiptail” shank; Teddy Knudsen blends hallmarks of other shapes, like the lips and furrows of cobras and sphinxes, with those of the horn, resulting in a design that almost resists categorization—and that’s just the Danes. In the case of this Randy Wiley horn, is closer to its namesake than most others of its kind, being an especially long, sharp interpretation, and whose fine, straight grain and plateaux rim gives it a sense of having been lifted straight from the head of some unlucky, plains-dwelling bovid.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating. Some minor finish fading.

Details:

Length: 9.0″ / 228.6mm

Bowl Width: 0.98 / 24.89mm

Bowl Depth: 2.43″ / 61.72mm

Weight: 4.1oz / 118g