W.O. Larsen Sandblasted Walrus (Sven Knudsen Design) Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

WO Larsen was a tobacconist in Copenhagen Denmark. In the 1960s, when Danish-style pipes were becoming highly sought after, thanks to revolutionary pipe-makers such as Sixten Ivarsson, a workshop was set up on the Larsen premises to produce enough high-grade Danish pipes to meet demand. This workshop was staffed by the emerging masters of Danish pipe-making, such as Sven and Teddy Knudsen, Hans ‘Former’ Nielsen, Jess Chonowitsch, Poul Ilsted, and Benni Jorgensen.

Of all the names given to pipe shapes, from apple to Zulu, the “Walrus” is certainly among the strangest. Yet one when looks at such a pipe, this appellation is very much intuitive. First designed by Sven Knudsen in at least the early 1960s, the design would appear in Knudsen’s work with Pibe-Dan (later Pipe Dan), in his Dantonian project with his younger brother Teddy Knudsen, and, of course, in the pipes of W.O. Larsen. The elder Knudsen was one of the first of the great Danish artisans to have their work sold by W.O. Larsen and, once the Larsen workshop was established, he would be its first foreman, so it is only natural that his Walrus shapes would find a place there. This one is a little different to Knudsen’s original design. The first Walrus was a sitter, like this one, and had protrusions at the base of the bowl, also like this one. But those protrusions were more like flaps, invoking the flippers of its marine mammalian namesake, whereas this one’s are more like small briar baubles. While Knudsen’s Walrus shapes are among the least common surviving designs from his time, this is far from the first of this particular variation I’ve come across. In fact, I have a pet theory about the scarcity of the former and the existence of the latter: while the original Walrus’s “flippers” were more “flipper-like,” they were also thin and quite brittle, especially for the feet of a sitter shape. As a result, I’ve seen many a Walrus with a broken limb or two. “Bauble” renditions like this one, on the other hand, are far more structurally sound, without losing the design’s signature look.

This one happens to be completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating, and its original, leather sleeve.

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.71″ / 43.43mm

Weight: 1.8oz / 52g