Nording Hand Made Grade 20 (highest), Smooth Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked [SOLD OUT]

Description

Nørding was founded by Erik Nørding in the 1960s, and is one of the oldest remaining companies to come out of the Scandinavian pipe-making renaissance that began in the mid-20th century. Now in his 80s, Erik Nørding is one of the most experienced and skilled pipe-makers in the world, and over the decades he has also been a teacher of other Danish masters, such as Poul Ilsted, Svend Axel Celius, Jens Tao Nielsen, Peder Jeppesen, and Søren Erik Andersen.

A grade 20 Hand Made by Erik Nording? On my desk? I never thought I’d see the day. For those that don’t know, Erik doesn’t make all of the Nording pipes these days. He has a workshop filled with apprentices making many of his various lines. Almost all of them, in fact. One significant exception is the Hand Made line, which are all entirely Erik’s creation. The pinnacle of Nording’s contemporary output (and its most expensive), Hand Mades are graded from 11-20 (or they used to be – I’m not sure if this has changed recently), with 20 being the absolute best Nording pipes that money can buy. This pipe is a grade 20, and it isn’t difficult to see why. It has some of the finest, tightest, ‘angel hair’ straight grain I’ve seen in a long while, which has been lovingly preserved with the lightest blonde stain. It’s also a very large pipe, with a capacious chamber for good, long smokes. Making big pipes with good grain is not easy, let me tell you. The more surface area you’re dealing with, the more chance there is of a flaw of some kind – every pipe-maker’s worst nightmare.

The cherry on top? This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating added by Erik to help ease in its first smokes.

 

Details:

Length: 7″

Bowl Width: 20.6mm

Bowl Depth: 1.9″

Weight: 3.3oz / 96g