Smooth Bent Dublin (CCCC) Tobacco Pipe

Claudio Cavicchi is not only a renowned pipe maker but also a renowned pipe smoker, having won the Committee International of Pipe Smokers Clubs' slow smoking world championship in 1993 by keeping three grams of tobacco lit for just over three hours and nine minutes. Cavicchi only took up pipe making full-time after a 30-year farming career, turning his first pipe when he decided to make his own Oom Paul rather than continuing to wait for delivery of one he already ordered. Cavicchi pipes are known for their superior grain, with former Pipes and tobaccos magazine editor Chuck Stanion remarking that their titular maker "can read briar as though it were a printed page."

Tall flame grain circles the walls of the bowl of his bent Dublin, which is finished smoothly to allow for easy appreciation and stained a bright, maple-like hue. The bowl is traditional for a Dublin and topped with a smooth rim of birdseye, then backed with an upturned shank adorned with flame grain similar to that of the bowl. A barely bent, tapered stem of black acrylic finishes the piece, which Cavicchi deemed worthy of a four-C grade (out of five). It's a well-executed piece of Italian work with grain that will not be easily forgotten even among the largest collections.