Curt Rollar & Mark Tinsky for PCI 1988, 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.

This pipe has a real backstory to it, which I’ll try to summarize as 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.

I’ve never seen a 1989 PCI pipe, so this 1988 release, made for PCI by Mark Tinsky and Curt Rollar of American Smoking Pipe Co., may well have been the club’s last. It is a freehand, slightly bent billiard, with a hexagonal, faceted bowl and impressive, tight, straight grain. Oddly enough, this pipe was also made just a year or two before Tinsky and Rollar’s pipe-making partnership ended.

Having come to us via our consignment program, this ASPC- for-PCI pipe is completely unsmoked. It also comes with its original presentation case, along with PCI president Bruce Spencer’s letter to its original recipient. Don’t worry, though, if you buy it, I promise that you won’t have to register ownership with anyone.

 

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 1.02 / 25.90mm

Bowl Depth: 1.74″ / 44.19mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g