WO Larsen (c.1960s) Selected Grain X 107 Smooth Poker Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

W.O. 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.

During the 1960s, W.O. Larsen’s “Selected Grain” appears to have been a precursor of sorts to its later “Select” grade pipes. In other words, the former were, like the latter (and as the name implies), a cut above the average W.O. Larsen pipe, with superior graining and only a light, natural finish, leaving that graining on full display. This one, for example, is a rather beautiful, cross-cut rendition of the early W.O. Larsen shape 107, a shape that one can find in the workshop’s catalogs from around 1960 and which was presumably designed by its then-foreman Sven Knudsen. It’s a very classical design with just a touch of “Danishness” to it—as was the case with most pipes made during the founding years of Danish artisan briars—taking the form of a short but stacked, lightweight poker, or cherrywood, sitter, that strikingly prefigures the shape’s more contemporary revival (most notably through Tom Eltang).

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

Details:

Length: 4.8″ / 121.9mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.90″ / 48.26mm

Weight: 1.1oz / 34g