Rainer Barbi AA Grade Large Smooth Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Alongside near-contemporaries such as Otto Pollner and Karlheinz Joura, Rainer Barbi was one of the ‘grand old men’ of German artisan pipe-making. Beginning his career in the 1970s, Barbi was largely self-taught, but nevertheless managed to establish a reputation as one of the most talented freehand pipe carvers in the world. In his later years, Barbi would partner with companies such as Hilson, Brebbia, and [posthumously] Dan Pipe in order to offer series-produced pipes based on his own designs. Barbi passed away in 2011.

With its sweeping curvature, broad, overflowing rim, and slightly flared boxwood accent, one might mistake this pipe from the late Rainer Barbi for a calabash. If you’re familiar with Barbi’s work, on the other hand, you’ll likely recognize this eccentric and exaggerated approach to form having instead been rooted in another shape, which a significant portion of those pipes recall: the Dublin. Like his Danish peers, Barbi took the traditional Dublin and made it his own, drawing out, emphasizing, and reworking its basic elements to create spectacular re-imaginings of what the shape could be. This one is distinctly tall, on top of its larger than average stature, with a stretched, ovaline rim and a steep bend as the bowl transitions into the shank, before moving upwards again to meet the stem. As should be expected from an AA grade Barbi, the grain on this one is flawless, with flame grain and bird’s-eye patterns positioned exactly where they should be: vertically for the former and horizontally for the latter.

This Barbi is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 2.0″ / 50.80mm

Weight: 2.1oz / 62g