Rainer Barbi AC Grade Smooth Apple w/ Horn 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. 

Apples have been central pipe making since the inception of briar, but no one made them quite like the Danes—or, rather, no one made them like the Danes or Germany’s Rainer Barbi. It has always been an elegant shape, typically having a smaller bowl and a gentler curvature than other staples, but post-war giants like Former, Tao, Nanna Ivarsson, and indeed Barbi, contributed toward nothing less than a reinvention of the shape. The way they did this, however, was by putting more of the apple into their designs. To borrow a clunky neologism from DH Lawrence’s writings on Cezanne, these pipes captured the “appleyness” of the shape’s namesake, being rounder, gentler, and more organic than anything that could be turned in a London or Saint-Claude factory. Of course, the form itself would be far less of an achievement without an unmatched expression of the briar’s natural grain to justify the painstaking handicraft required to make it. This particular apple is all the more striking thanks to its exquisite straight grain, and additionally features one of Barbi’s signature motifs, a split stem comprised of horn and cumberland.

This pipe is completely unsmoked. There is some residual odixation on the stem, but as the pipe is unsmoked, I have chosen to leave any further touch ups to the buyer. I would estimate this pipe to have been made around 1990, give or take a couple of years.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.5″ / 38.10mm

Weight: 1.8oz / 52g