Buckeye Hand Made Contrast Sandblasted Fugu Briar Pipe, New

Premal Chheda’s Buckeye Pipes have undergone several significant changes since their debut in the mid-2000s. Chheda himself was one of the first major players in 21st century American artisan briars, having been taught the fundamentals of high-grade pipe making by Mike Butera, and having had plenty of students of his own in the time since. Though Buckeye started out as an sub-brand for pipes that did not quite meet the standard of a pipe stamped with the Chheda name, the two would ultimately become different projects entirely. Today’s Buckeye Pipes are, instead, high-quality briars produced by Premal Chheda and his apprentices. The difference between a Chheda Pipe, or one of the pipes made by Chheda’s apprentices under their own name, and a Buckeye pipe boils down to the level of detailing involved: Buckeye Pipes are precision engineered and expertly finished, while being more minimalist in design and less labor-intensive in execution than their counterparts. In biological contexts, “fugu” and “blowfish” refer to the same creature. But in pipes, the words have slightly different meanings. The blowfish shape came out of Denmark, through figures such as Lars Ivarsson and Peter Heeschen, while the fugu shape came after, and from elsewhere in the world. Fugu shapes, on the other hand, came out of the Japanese artisan scene, which makes sense given that “fugu” is Japanese for “blowfish.” But it wasn’t just the name that Japanese artisans modified; the shape itself was transformed, incorporating novel approaches to proportion and symmetry (or, rather, asymmetry), resulting in pipes that were visibly related to their Danish counterparts, but also very different. In more recent times, the fugu has been transformed again and again as artisans around the world put their own spin on it, resulting in a shape with more distinct variations than there are extant species of their namesake. This one, from the Buckeye workshop, is a slightly stubby take on the form, with a deep, contrast sandblast, with ring grain that ripples across the bowl’s swerving surfaces. Details: Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm Bowl Depth: 1.38″ / 35.05mm Weight: 2.1oz / 60g