Sebastian Heck Sandblasted Tomato w/ Second Stem Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Sebastian Heck is part of younger generation of highly skilled artisans to have emerged from Germany in recent years. Based in Heidelberg, Heck took up pipe smoking—and, ultimately, pipe-making—as part of a conscious effort toward slowing down in an otherwise constantly accelerating modern world. Like many pipe-makers, Heck took his first steps into the craft as a restorer of estate and heirloom pieces, which in time brought with it an expansion of his workshop and the tools housed within it. With this as a base, creating new pipes of his own was a natural progression. Heck’s development has been greatly influenced by the Danish and German schools of pipe design, and has included time spent learning directly from fellow German artisans, such as Dirk Heinemann.

The tomato is a very old shape in the world of briar pipes but, as with many of the staples of Anglo-French design, it is one that was completely transformed by movements in artisan pipe-making after the Second World War. Instead of the diminutive proportions found on the tomatoes of Chacom, Ropp or Brulor, the shape became wider, fuller, rounder—in a way that, quite fittingly, mirrors the domestication of the fruit itself. This tomato, from German artisan Sebastian Heck, follows in the footsteps of carvers such as Jess Chonowitsch by way of its squat-yet-voluptuous frame, allowing for a greater expression of the bowl’s ring grain sandblast. Heck’s color scheme is far more unto his own, however, choosing to pair a near-black stain with a choice of either a similarly black SEM ebonite stem, or one cut from orange Juma.

 

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.71 / 18.03mm

Bowl Depth: 1.05″ / 26.67mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 44g