Becker for PCI 1985, Partially Rusticated Bent Stack Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

The Becker family is one of Italy’s most renowned pipe-making lineages. Beginning with the painter, sculptor, and WW2 British intelligence officer Fritz Becker, the Becker name became synonymous with Italian high-quality pipes after Fritz was discovered by Giorgio Musico, a pipe-maker himself, and owner of a popular pipe shop in Rome. Both Fritz and Giorgio had sons, Paolo Becker and Massimo Musico who learned pipe-making from their fathers and would go on to collaborate in making the famous Becker & Musico pipes, before parting to return to making Becker pipes and Musico pipes once more. Paolo passed away in 2014, but his son, Federico continues to make Becker pipes, to continued acclaim.

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.

If you’ve followed our recent listings, you may have seen a couple of other PCI pipes of the year come through MBSD. Owing to a consignor who happened to collect PCI pipes, we’ve had both the 1988 pipe by Tinsky & Rollar’s American Smoking Pipe Company, and the 1985 Stanwell one. This is the 1986 PCI pipe, a Becker that – if my pipe history serves me well – will have been made by Paolo Becker, possibly in collaboration with Fritz Becker, as the two were known to do. The design is very Paolo, being a swan-necked stack billiard, dressed in the quintessentially Italian yet distinctly Becker granular rustication, with a smooth polished burgundy rim.

Having come to us via our consignment program, this Becker for-PCI pipe is, like the other ones, completely unsmoked. It also comes with its original box and sleeve, along with PCI president Bruce Spencer’s letter to its original recipient. The box has one or two scuffs, but the pipe itself is immaculate.

 

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 2.22″ / 56.38mm

Weight: 2.6oz / 74g