Sandblasted Acorn with Horn Tobacco Pipe

The pipemaking world works very much like a game of telephone: pipe forms being passed down from carver to carver, each interpreting it slightly different from out of their own unique perspectives. It's one of the reasons why the industry is rife with so many creative iterations of similar forms, and such is the case with this horn-accented Acorn rendition from Ping Zhan. It's a design we've seen several times before from the Chinese carver and is actually a take on Tokutomi's take on a Sixten Ivarsson shape.

In Zhan's rendition, the bowl is kept fairly classic — tall and slender, with the shape's characteristic bulge apparent just below the rim. Ping, then, adds his own flourish at the shank. Extended with a generous ferrule of horn, the shank's upward curve adds a dynamic, organic element that balances out the downward curl of the stem and accentuates the protruding heel below the transition. Above, the slight concave nature of the rim echoes the Danish-style flare at the shank-end to balance out the overall profile. Lightweight and fitted with incredible bit work, this piece is a beauty inside and out.