Doctor’s Pipes, Strawberry Wood Calabash Estate Briar Pipe, Russian Estates [SOLD]

Description

Doctor’s Pipes are made by artisan pipe-maker Roman Kovalev. Based in Saint Petersburg, Kovalev’s pipe-making moniker derives from his sixteen years spent as a pediatric neurologist, and the consequent nickname of ‘Doc’ given by his friends. Taking up pipe-making in the early 2010s, and with a great deal of inspiration from Japanese masters such as Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Kovalev’s career underwent a meteoric rise that most artisans can only dream of. As one might expect from their maker’s background, Doctor’s Pipes are truly precision instruments; they are also highly inventive, however, with one of Kovalev’s innovations being the sandblasting machine that he designed and built as tailored to his own personal specifications.

There are so many interesting things about this pipe that I’m not sure where to start. For one, it’s a true calabash – i.e., with a removable cap – but it isn’t made out of meerschaum and gourd, as with the most traditional of calabashes. It isn’t made out of tree heather briar, either, which wooden pipes tend to be. So, what’s it made out of? Well, the bowl and chamber are strawberry wood, which behaves a lot like tree heather, but is more responsive to sandblasting and rustication, resulting in an eminently craggy finish. The shank is bamboo, which allows for a more drastic bend to the pipe’s general curvature. And the cap? That’s polymerized horn, taken from the fossilized remains of a Pleistocene woolly rhinocerous. In other words, it’s around 15,000-year-old ivory, preserved by nature, then made even flashier by complex science that I won’t even try to explain. Oh, and the stem is ebonite.

The condition is mint. I don’t see any outstanding issues with this pipe.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.33″ / 33.78mm

Weight: 2.0oz / 58g