Tsuge Tokyo 503 Sandblasted Egg w/ Bamboo Estate Briar Pipe, Japanese Estates

Description

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 Scandi-Japanese style, including designs by Danish icons such as Jorn Micke and Geert Holbek.

Of all of the designs that Japan’s Tsuge company produces, the Tokyo is arguably the clearest representation of its first, founding debt to Scandinavian artisan pipe making. Typically long and slender, yet lightweight and easy on the jaw, and each being accented by a bamboo shank extension, there is a clear nod to Sixten Ivarsson in each of them, even when the shapes used aren’t necessarily Ivarssonian. This one is the Tokyo “503,” a bent egg rendition seen here dressed in a seriously impressive, ring grain sandblast finish.

The condition is very good. Chamber slightly over-reamed and minor finish fading.

Details:

Length: 7″ / 177.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.65″ / 41.91mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g