2000 JT Cooke Magnum Sandblasted Calabash Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

J.T. Cooke is a Vermont-based American artisan carver with a number of impressive credentials under his belt. Cooke was originally based at Elliot Nachtwalter and Jeorg Jemelka’s The Briar Workshop, in a role which included making pipes for Wilke’s tobacconist in Philadelphia. After leaving the Workshop, Cooke collaborated with Barry Levin in establishing the estate pipes market as we know it, by restoring pipes for Levin’s outfit. During this time, Cooke would also begin to make pipes under his own name. Today, Cooke’s pipes are among the most sought after in the American artisan scene thanks to their distinct and often unparalleled shaping, engineering, and finishing. After 50 years in the craft, Cooke retired from pipe-making in 2024.

Though J.T. Cooke carved his first pipe in 1972, it was not until 1999 that he took up pipe-making full-time, leaving behind his other sources of work in pipe repairs and the estates business. With pipe-making his sole focus, he had the time needed to perfect those aspects of the craft that would usher in his status as an American pipe icon. A number of significant changes are visible in Cooke’s work from this point onward. One was his further development of his sandblasting technique, which involved putting a stummel through the blasting cabinet up to five times per pipe in order to effect a tight, deep, ring grain finish. Another was his increased focus on traditional pipe shapes—especially those made famous by English makes, such as Dunhill—such as the LC bent billiard, the foursquare, the LB, and the squat bulldog, or O shape. On the other hand, he did not abandon other shapes entirely, and this one, the calabash, was returned to periodically by Cooke during his later career. Like the calabashes of old, this one is a large, flowing shape, but rendered in briar rather than gourd and meerschaum. Cooke’s masterful sandblasting is present, including a genuinely fascinating bird’s-eye blast section on the rim, and the pipe has been given a light brown, stain, reminiscent of the early Dunhill Tanshell. The stem is hand cut acrylic inlaid with the later Cooke’s emblem, the taijitu.

-J.M.

This J.T. Cooke is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

 

Details:

Length: 8″ / 203.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 2.25″ / 57.15mm

Weight: 4.3oz / 122g