Smooth Calabash with Boxwood and Horn (Snail) Tobacco Pipe

The Calabash is an unusual shape in the context of Tom Eltang's work. Tom certainly knows how to make a gorgeous one, and he's made some grand examples indeed... and yet outside his smaller, simpler, rusticated version this shape is very, very rare. Really these more individual Calabashes seem to be something Tom only makes when he sees the potential for something special — as all those we've ever seen have been either Snail grades or "Gotangs", the latter being those pipes he made in collaboration with Kei-ichi Gotoh.

Well now we have our fourth Eltang Calabash not of the standardized/rusticated type, and sure enough it is a Snail. The funny thing is that even though I've seen so few fully-functional, gourd-style Calabashes by Tom before, I still think I could have recognized this pipe as one of his by the silhouette alone — Tom has that way with lines.

- Eric N. Squires