W.O. Larsen Straight Grain (Pearl) Smooth Dublin with Horn & Integral Tamper (Estate)

About this pipe:

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.

While even the “average” W.Ø. Larsen pipe embodied a rare excellence in pipe design and handicraft, the pinnacle of the workshop’s output were its Straight Grain and Birds Eyes grades. These were pipes made, from beginning to end, by the hands of W.Ø. Larsen’s highest ranking artisans at any given time, such as Sven Knudsen, Former, Tonni Nielsen, Jess Chonowitsch, Teddy Knudsen, or Benni Jorgensen. Naturally, such pipes were far from common, and even with a fully-functioning workshop on the its premises, W.Ø. Larsen contracted a few of their associated artisans to carve them in their own workshops and stamp them with the shop’s house branding—such were the lengths that the Larsen family went to so that they could maintain a stock of the finest pipes in Denmark.

Straight Grain and Birds Eyes pipes were typically graded numerically, on an ascending scale that ran from 1 to 10. There were a couple of notable exceptions, however, and perhaps most notable among them was the Pearl grade. Typically denoted by a stamp of a pipe smoker reclining in his chair (W.Ø. Larsen’s logo for a time), Pearl-grade pipes exceeded even the 10-grade Straight Grain and Birds Eyes pipes in terms of craftsmanship. Early on in the workshops lifetime, grain quality was the most decisive factor in whether a pipe received a Pearl grade, though later iterations saw W.Ø. Larsen’s artisans incorporating forms of ornamentation into their designs as well, such as boxwood accents or cultured amber mouthpieces.

This particular Pearl grade features an animal horn ferrule, for example, though it also features an additional functional element that I’ve never seen before on a W.Ø. Larsen pipe. Just underneath the end of the shank, one finds another piece of horn, this time carved into a pick and tamper tool. Such tools were popular accessories offered by W.Ø. Larsen during its later decades, though they were separate from the pipes themselves. In this instance, the pipe has been specifically carved so as to integrate the tamper tool into its design, having it nestled at the ready for whenever it’s needed.

The condition is very good. Minor inner rim darkening, a couple of small scratches on the bowl, and some minor, natural wear to the horn material used for the pipe’s ferrule and tamper. This pipe comes with its original (slightly time worn) box and leather sleeve. As the pipe’s sleeve is marked “120 aar” (Danish for “120 years”), it may well be the case that this pipe was made to commemorate W.Ø. Larsen’s 120th anniversary in 1984, though I was not able to find further confirmation of this).

 

Details:

Length: 7″ / 177.8mm

Chamber Width: 0.97″ / 24.63mm

Chamber Depth: 1.73″ / 43.94mm

Bowl Height: 2.20″ / 55.88mm

Weight: 2.5oz / 70g