W.O. Larsen Select 49 Smooth Walrus Sitter (Unsmoked Estate)

W.Ø. Larsen was a tobacconist in Copenhagen Denmark. In the 1960s, when Danish-style pipes were becoming highly sought after, thanks to revolutionary pipe makers such as Sixten Ivarsson, a workshop was set up on the Larsen premises to produce enough high-grade Danish pipes to meet demand. This workshop was staffed by the emerging masters of Danish pipe-making, such as Sven and Teddy Knudsen, Hans “Former” Nielsen, Jess Chonowitsch, Poul Ilsted, and Benni Jorgensen.

Of all the names given to pipe shapes, from apple to Zulu, the “Walrus” is certainly among the strangest. Yet one when looks at such a pipe, this appellation is very much intuitive. First designed by Sven Knudsen in at least the early 1960s, the design would appear in Knudsen’s work with Pibe-Dan (later Pipe Dan), in his Dantonian project with his younger brother Teddy Knudsen, and, of course, in the pipes of W.Ø. Larsen. The elder Knudsen was one of the first of the great Danish artisans to have their work sold by W.Ø. Larsen and, once the Larsen workshop was established, he would be its first foreman, so it is only natural that his Walrus shapes would find a place there.

This particular W.Ø. Larsen is one of Knudsen’s “classic” Walrus designs (there were a few variations created in the workshop’s later years), and it holds the additional honor of being a Select grade, a high-end pipe made by W.Ø. Larsen’s most skilled craftsmen.

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

Details:

Length: 5.9″ / 149.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 2.08″ / 52.83mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g