Ser Jacopo (c.1980s) S2 Maxima Partially Sandblasted Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Ser Jacopo is one of the most famous contemporary examples of high-grade, workshop-made Italian pipes. It also belongs to a very special tradition in Italian pipe making, having been established by Giancarlo Guidi and Bruno Sordini after the two had left another great Italian workshop, Mastro de Paja. Together, Guidi and Sordini created a brand of pipes that reflected their Renaissance sensibilities – even the figurehead of Ser Jacopo happens to be taken from a painting of a nobleman from centuries past—one that would soon become esteemed for creating unique and beautiful tobacco pipes that smoked just as perfectly as they looked.

Since the workshop’s early years, Ser Jacopo has used the “Maxima” designation for oversized pipes—i.e., pipes that are significantly larger than the average Ser Jacopo. While in more recent times, the use of the “Maxima” designation has been expanded, leading some, gargantuan Ser Jacopo pipes to be stamped with up to eight “Maxima”s respective to their size, even a single “Maxima” from the workshop is quite a big pipe.

Judging by the stem logo on this Ser Jacopo, it’s a very early example of the Maxima subseries—one of the earliest we’ve had, in fact. As I’ve mentioned before, Ser Jacopo pipes have gone through numerous different stem logos over the years. Since around 1997, a silver “J” has been standard for main-line Ser Jacopo pipes; between then and the workshop’s founding in 1982, however, gilt-edged gemstones, sea coral, and red plexiglass were successively adopted and dropped. This particular pipe has a sea coral inlay, but it is itself inlaid in a ring of silver, which was the second stem logo used by the Ser Jacopo workshop (gemstones briefly being the first). Unfortunately, a red dot within a silver circle was, unbeknownst to Giancarlo Guidi and his colleagues, already trademarked by another pipe company in Italy, thus the silver ring had to be abandoned.

The condition is great. Minor inner rim darkening and slight handling marks.

Details:

Length: 6.3″ / 160.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.93 / 23.62mm

Bowl Depth: 2.27″ / 57.65mm

Weight: 2.7oz / 78g