Tsuge Kaga 901 Sandblasted Volcano Estate Briar Pipe, Japanese Estates

Tsuge is Japan’s largest and most internationally renowned pipe company, having been founded in 1936 by Kyoichiro Tsuge. In the 1970s, however, Tsuge himself was so impressed by the pipes coming out of Denmark, that he sent two of Tsuge’s own master pipe-makers, Kazuhiro Fukuda and Smio Satou, to hone their craft under the likes of Sixten Ivarsson and Jørgen Larsen. Upon their return, the Tsuge Ikebana workshop was established so that Fukuda, Satou, and their apprentices would have the means to create high-grade Japanese pipes to rival even those being made in Europe’s pipe-making capitals. Alongside the Ikebana workshop, Tsuge expanded its range of standard models to reflect the company’s new Scando-Japanese style, including designs by Danish icons such as Jorn Micke and Geert Holbek.

Tsuge’s Kaga series expresses a little known connection between Danish and Japanese pipe making. Plenty are familiar with the relationship between Tsuge’s Ikebana carvers and the Danish masters of old; the 1970s exchange of pipe-making know-how between Kazuhiro Fukuda and Smio Satou and Sixten Ivarsson and Jørgen Larsen is the stuff of legend. But Tsuge also took inspiration from other makers, such as Gert Holbek and, in this instance, Jørn Micke. I’ve mentioned before how Micke’s style is very difficult to adequately describe, but easily recognizable once you’re familiar with his works—kind of an “I know it when I see it” thing. This one, for example, is a sort of author-volcano hybrid very much in Micke’s style, including the pipe’s reserved, grayish sandblast finish.

The condition is very good. Some rim darkening.

Details:

Length: 5.6″ / 142.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.03″ / 26.16mm

Weight: 1.8oz / 52g