Smooth Tomato with Bamboo (Royal Flush Elite B) Tobacco Pipe

The majority of Tomatoes the late Paolo Becker sent us over the last few years were of the short-and-flared shank variety. Digging through our archives, I had to go back to 2009 to find another that combined this modern-organic bowl style with any other kind of shank - back then they were a mix of arrow-straight arrangements, and longer, more slender predecessors of the aforementioned wasp-waisted type that would eventually become dominant.

While doing said digging around, I also happened to notice this: this is, as far as I can find, the only Becker Tomato with bamboo that we ever received new, preceded only by a sandblasted estate example that was made in 2006. All this. is not so surprising. He did stamp this one as a "Royal Flush", after all, which aside from serving as a grade, also specifically indicated shapes Paolo had considered difficult or inventive - i.e. ones outside his usual practice.

- Eric N. Squires