Smooth Bent Dublin with Plateau and Black Palm (Viking) Tobacco Pipe

When it comes to very full-bodied shapes with buoyant forms and lines, usually I think of a Brandy — typically a Brandy as would be executed by a Danish or Danish-influenced (and usually American) artisan. Well Tonni Nielsen is a Danish artisan, but this isn't a Brandy. The latter doesn't seem to matter; he went and managed to make this bent Dublin buoyant of style anyway, regardless of the great thickness of briar it packs into less than 3.5" of curl from forward rim-edge to rear shank-edge. That does, of course, also make for a very tight-knit design as well, but I'm happy to say that proves no trouble in hand. You won't be tucking a thumb into that transition, but said digit does come to rest very naturally on the rear part of the broad rim, and all the more so thanks to how Tonni arranged the briar itself — a natural, slight curve of the plateau placed just right there.

- Eric N. Squires