Ascorti Business Rusticated Calabash Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

Ascorti belongs to a historic lineage in Italian artisan pipe-making. Guiseppe ‘Peppino’ Ascorti was first employed as a pipe-maker in the 1950s, in Carlo Scotti’s Castello workshop in Cantu. There he met Luigi Radice, and in the 1960s the two decided to leave Castello to create their own pipe-making workshop, under the name ‘Caminetto.’ At the end of the 1970s, Guiseppe Ascorti and Luigi Radice left Caminetto and once more decided to start new ventures. Luigi Radice founded the Radice pipe workshop, and Guiseppe’s son Roberto Ascorti, who had also worked in the Caminetto workshop since he was a child, decided to create a workshop under his own name. Roberto was joined not only by his father, but also many of the talented craftsmen who had formerly worked for Caminetto. In 1980, the Ascorti workshop was born.

I have to say, this Ascorti is very different to what I’d normally expect from their workshop. Not that it’s a bad thing—not at all, in fact—I just don’t think I’ve ever seen an Ascorti with this kind of long, slender, very classical calabash design. They’ve pulled it off well, and it isn’t a complete departure from the signature Ascorti style. It is dressed in the workshop’s Business finish—a form of pebble-dash rustication whose history can be traced all the way back to the founding of Caminetto, and likely Castello before that—and features an army mount Lucite stem very much in keeping with Guiseppe and Roberto’s distinct aesthetic.

The condition is very good. Some minor inner rim darkening and a slight over-reaming of the chamber.

 

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.85″ / 21.59mm

Bowl Depth: 1.62″ / 41.14mm

Weight: 2.1oz / 60g