Cuttying to the Quick

For pipe smokers, especially among those who feel a strong connection to things nautical or historical, the cutty is a beloved shape,  perhaps because the shape’s roots are thought to emerge from the earliest of smoking pipes: clay tavern pipes that preceded briar pipes by almost two centuries. You see at the top of this post a rare Comoy Blue Riband Shape No. 347, a briar pipe with design elements that echo its tavern-pipe predecessor: forward cant, casting nipple, and egg-ish bowl shape.

Given how the pipe’s look seems so proximal to its clay pipe origins, one might assume that the Comoy’s 347 shape is the oldest of the cutty shapes the company made, but that’s not the case.

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On Being Cavalier

Updated on Friday, June 26, 2015 at 5:01PM by Neill Archer Roan

Cavalier (Extraordinaire) by Comoy’s

The classic cavalier by Comoy’s that you see depicted above is a rare bird, the only version I’ve ever seen of the shape by Comoy’s. An Extraordinaire, it is a large pipe that is beautifully grained and impeccably made. I acquired the pipe from the Bisgaards, hitting the buy button the minute I saw the pipe. It was only upon receiving it that I realized that it was likely made in the 1950s. It has the old, arched, serifed Comoy’s type stamp.

As with other consumer products, fashion flexes its muscle in the pipe world, too, especially with respect to the waxing and waning of pipe shapes. For example, for a number of years nosewarmers have been fashionable. So have chubby rhodesians. As a result of this year’s Kansas City Pipe Club’s North American Pipe Carver’s Contest, interest may be renewed in the cavalier shape.

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Reflecting on Innovation

Innovation. If there is one word penned or uttered to inspire encomiums, innovation is it. Further, implicit in the word is the notion that innovation is always good. It is construed as evidence that the innovator is striving to introduce something that is now indispensable but that was previously missing. However, all too often improvement is lacking. There is only difference, but this does not inhibit claqueurs from leaping to their feat in enthusiastic applause.

Innovation comes in many forms. We have engineering innovation, design innovation, materials innovation, packaging innovation, marketing innovation, and process innovation. There are seemingly no limits to which the ambitious and the imaginative among us can explore the wilderness of the new, the better, or at least the different. The challenge, however, is to avoid rushing to market prematurely–a consideration that is sometimes overlooked.

If one wants to retain some measure of credibility or dignity–even in the generously forgiving pipe world–it is a good idea to create distinctions between innovations that are experimental and those where the R&D process has yielded a smart, mature solution.

Sometimes, conversations about innovation are a bit over the top in my opinion, and while I believe that innovative people are critical to aesthetic, technological, and social advancement, all innovation is not created equal. Some innovations are little more than outright Rube Goldberg-esque solutions like the pipe depicted at the top of this post.

Some innovations are not innovative at all. They are ideas that have been explored–and even made–long before. That the current experimenter is ignorant of previous attempts does not make the effort novel. It also does not make revising an idea or revisiting a solution unworthy. But don’t make untrue claims. Socrates’ observation that “There is nothing new under the sun” is almost always true.

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Leafy Sea Dragon by Tonni Nielsen

While there are many notable pipe collections in our pipe community, Richard Friedman’s Sea Creature collection is unique among them. Taking its inspiration from Richard’s life at sea, his collection is populated with a vast array of ocean creatures—some so exotic and other-worldly that it boggles the mind that their essential shapes or natures could be imagined, let alone rendered, in briar.

Leafy Sea DragonWhile some shapes, like the blowfish, fugu, and whale, have made their way into the mainstream, others like the manta ray, the sea horse, the squid or the octopus will almost certainly never become commonplace. Among these rarities, one in particular stands out: a Leafy Sea Dragon by Tonni Nielsen that Richard acquired at the last Richmond Pipe Show.

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At the peak of his powers.

Lasse Skovgaard, Tonni Nielsen, and Mimmo Romeo at the Chicago Show several years ago.

Several weekends ago at the Richmond CORPS Show, I spent quite a few hours chatting with Danish-American pipemaker, Tonni Nielsen, and with my friend Richard Friedman, too, who Tonni mentored in pipemaking. Our conversation was revelatory to me, full of insights.

I was particularly struck by Tonni’s humility. How many 60-year old pipemakers will admit to feeling nervousness about staying at the top of their game? How many talk about ensuring that they stay practiced in some of the more difficult operations in pipemaking? Everything about Tonni Nielsen – from his lean and muscular profile to the penetrating gaze of his eyes, to the luminary quality of his artisan circle of colleagues, to an awesome body of work over a lifetime that began in the teen years of his apprenticeship at W.O. Larsen – evidences a master craftsman at the peak of his powers. Despite all that, I heard the voice of someone who takes nothing for granted, least of all his ability to meet his own standards while continuing to push himself beyond where he has grown to now.

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