Ben Wade Sandblasted Freehand Estate Briar Pipe, Danish Estates

Description

While Ben Wade was a historic British pipe brand, for a time during the 1970s, production of Ben Wade pipes was contracted out to one of Danish pipe-making’s superstars: Preben Holm. Though he would tragically pass away at the age of 42, Holm was one of the pioneering figures in the ‘Danish design’ movement in 20th century pipe-making, a movement that still dominates the high-grade pipe scene. By hand-shaping his pipes on a belt sander, Holm was able to make the most of the patterns of grain hidden within briar, creating spectacular works of pipe art that looked just as good as they smoked. Owing to Holm’s untimely passing, his pipes are even more highly sought after than they were during his lifetime.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of a pipe smoker in the 1960s or 1970s—and I know, for some of our customers, this is not a stretch—imagine having smoked your Kaywoodies or your Comoy’s, or even your Dunhills for all of your smoking life, and then you see a pipe such as this one. In the words of a late friend of mine, who was a Dunhill man in the 1970s, you think to yourself, “You can smoke that?” The answer is, of course, yes you can, and they smoke wonderfully. But the boldness and the assertiveness of the image that a pipe such as this one strikes, even today, can’t be overstated. And the sandblasting, which can only be described as aggressive, only serves to further that look that Preben Holm’s pipes had—and that contemporary freehands still struggle to capture and to go beyond.

That’s my feeling about these pipes anyway, and I do have a fair few of my own. Condition wise, this one is very good. There’s some inner rim darkening and some minor finish fading, but with a pipe like this one, it’s not something you’d even notice.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.89 / 22.60mm

Bowl Depth: 1.57″ / 39.87mm

Weight: 2.6oz / 76g