2002 JT Cooke Smooth Horn Estate Briar Pipe, American Estates

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 is widely known for his unmatched sandblast finishes and his renditions of traditional English shapes, smooth finishes and more modern designs are not completely alien from his portfolio. Such pipes became far less common during Cooke’s “mature period,” that being from the turn of the millennium onward and after his retirement from all other ventures than pipe-making, but, every so often, he would spare a block from the blasting cabinet. This Cooke, from 2002, just happens to be one of those pipes. It is undeniably Danish in its elementary form, though I do see a touch of a Japanese aesthetic in its flared, almost “overflowing” rim—I’m thinking of the pipes of Arita, Gotoh, or Tokutomi here. As for the question of why this pipe ended up as having such a shape and such a finish, I’d put that down to the grain. The pipe has been carved in a way that allows the flame grain patterns of the briar to follow the curvature of the stummel, moving upward before exploding into bird’s-eye at the rim. Cooke’s a smart guy—he’ll have known not to let that go to waste. On a final note, as this pipe is from Cooke’s mature period, the stem will have been cut from one of his own, hand-poured acrylic rods, allowing him to wield its amber-like hue and striations exactly as he pleased.

The condition is great. Some inner rim darkening, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.63″ / 41.40mm

Weight: 1.8oz / 52g