Caminetto Business 156 KS Rusticated Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

Caminetto was, and is to this day, a decisive figure in the history of Italy’s pipe workshop tradition. After spending time developing their skills in the Castello workshop, Sergio Ascorti and Luigi Radice left to found their own venture, which they named, “Caminetto.” Here, Ascorti and Radice were able to create their own now-classic shapes and finishes, such as the rusticated “Business,” and the carved, wax-drip “New Dear.”

It seems appropriate to me to say that, whereas the principal institutions of Danish pipe making have been its shapes, Italy’s principal institutions are its finishes. Caminetto’s Business, for example, is an example of the “weathered stone” rustication found, in various styles, in both Caminetto’s direct forebear Castello, and in many other, high-grade Italian makes with no such relation to either. Savinelli, Brebbia, Ser Jacopo, Ardor, etc.—with each having their own approach and aesthetic, despite the shared motif. The early Caminetto Business, as seen here, has always struck me as being far more rugged and stonier than the pebble-dash form found on most other makes, with the closest comparison one could make being The Sea Rock Briar iteration Castello used in its earliest years (1950s-early 1960s). These days, even Caminetto doesn’t use this kind of finishing for their Business line (though management has changed over the years), but there lies the beauty of the estates market. Judging by the nomenclature and ‘bird-in-flight’ stem logo, this large, slightly-fumed Business looks to have been made between the end of the 1960s and the mid-1970s.

The condition is very good. Some darkening and finish fading around the rim.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.98 / 24.89mm

Bowl Depth: 1.86″ / 47.24mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g