Mastro de Paja Large Smooth Canadian Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

Like Castello, Mastro de Paja holds a special place in the world of Italian high-grade pipe workshops. Founded in 1972 by Giancarlo Guidi, the MdP team was soon joined by Giannino Spadoni and Bruto Sordini with the Guidi and Spadoni at the helm of the company until 1981. Guidi then left with Sordini to found Ser Jacopo, and Sordini would later leave Ser Jacopo to found Don Carlos. Spadoni, on the other hand, stayed at MdP until he also left, after which he founded Fiamma di Re. Today, Mastro de Paja is guided by Alberto Montini, with the workshop being known for both the manufacture of some of Italy’s most admired pipes, and for having launched the careers of some of its most respected artisans.

The early decades of the Pesaro School, which Mastro de Paja helped inaugurate, could be defined by two things: traditional, or neo-traditional, shapes and simple, natural finishes. In this way, they mirrored the early Danish hand mades, whose designs were similarly a mixture of the classic and the subtly novel, before far more avant-garde sensibilities gripped pipe-making in later years. This Mastro de Paja, for example, looks to be from the 1980s. It breaks convention here and there, owing to its atypical length and its hybridization of the Dublin, panel, and Canadian shapes, but it makes sure to stay close enough to the comforting familiarity of pipe design standards. It also features nice flame grain and bird’s-eye patterns, which are just about laid bare by the pipe’s light blonde stain.

The condition is great. Some inner rim darkening.

 

Details:

Length: 7.2″ / 182.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.54″ / 39.11mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g