Smooth Acorn with Horn (G) (096) Tobacco Pipe

Well this is different. By that I mean I've never seen this shape from Tsuge Ikebana before. At a stretch, I might call it a variation of a design we did see a couple examples of quite a while back (2010 and 2011), but in order to get this Acorn to look like those Acorns, you'd have to bend it about another 45 degrees and change the rim to a hemisphere form. Like I said, a stretch. The first thing this briar's basic nature did remind me of was an Ivarsson, albeit without the signature Ivarsson teardrop cross-section to the shank (a shaping cue which, by this point, is seeing more use by non-Ivarssons than it is by Lars or Nanna).

- Eric N. Squires