Curt Rollar & Mark Tinsky for PCI 1987, Smooth Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

The American Smoking Pipe Company was founded in 1978 by artisans Mark Tinsky and Curt Rollar. Tinsky and Rollar’s venture was part of a new wave of North American hand made pipe making that emerged in the 1970s and ’80s, including artisan carvers such as Mike Butera, Tim West, Elliot Nachtwalter and Jorg Jemelka. Despite the name, American Smoking Pipe Co. was not a factory or large scale operation, but a simple pipe workshop and name shared between friends. Rollar departed the company in 1990, after which Tinsky remained at the reins into the 2000s, before selling his pipes under his own name.

As with the other PCI pipes we’ve listed recently, this pipe has an important back story to it, so I’ll try to summarize that briefly as possible. In 1983, an American pipe collector named Bruce Spencer created a magazine for fellow pipe collectors, called Pipe Smoker. In tandem with Pipe Smoker, he founded Pipe Collectors International, a kind of pipe club that the magazine would be the publishing arm of. In 1984, PCI started releasing a yearly, limited edition pipe for its members, with the first being made by Preben Holm. And PCI took these pipes very seriously. Because they were meant to be collectors’ items, PCI kept a registry of all of the pipes that had been purchased, along with the member that had purchased them. If the pipe was sold on, PCI even asked that the previous owner contact them, so that their records of ownership could be updated, presumably so that a paper trail documenting the pipe’s provenance could be maintained. Ultimately, in 1989, PCI and Pipe Smoker were dissolved.

For the 1987 PCI pipe of the year, subscribers were given the option of choosing between a pipe made by Mark Tinsky and Curt Rollar’s American Pipe Smoking Company, or one made by Italy’s Cesare Talamona. This pipe’s previous owner chose the former, and now that I’ve seen both, I’m not sure which I like more. Like the Talamona, this Tinsky & Rollar collaboration is a slightly bent, saddle Dublin, which makes me wonder if this was intentional, or even if it was a competition between the two esteemed American and Italian makes.

As with the other PCI pipes we’ve listed recently, this one is completely unsmoked, and comes with its original presentation box. Each of these pipes came to us via our consignment program, and to be honest I’m really grateful that they did, as learning more about the PCI project as a result has been extremely enlightening. In fact, I think we’re only one or two pipes short of having sold the whole set at one point or another.

 

Details:

Length: 5.6″ / 142.2mm

Bowl Width: 1.01 / 25.65mm

Bowl Depth: 1.81″ / 45.97mm

Weight: 1.8oz / 52g