Martin Romijn Smooth Poker w/ Bamboo Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Within the modern artisan community, there are many pipe makers with backgrounds in other forms of art, manufacture, and handicraft, and who apply skills learned in their previous vocations to the creation of their pipes. Some artisans are former machinists; others were carpenters; some were even painters in their past lives. Martin Romijn, on the other hand, belongs to a small minority of pipe makers whose previous career was in stonemasonry. Like Germany’s Frank Axmacher, Romijn spent much of his adult life cutting and sculpting stone, doing so across a broad range of practical and ornamental applications. While those days are now behind him, Romijn still carries with him much of what he learned from working with granite, quartz, and marble. The skills and philosophy he cultivated as a stonemason continue to inform his pipe making endeavors, just as they did when he set his sights on briar nearly a decade ago. And, when asked about his technique regarding the latter, he cracks a wry smile, stating simply that “pipe is already inside the piece of briar, I only have to reveal it by taking away everything that doesn’t look like a pipe!” Among Martin Romijn’s signature designs are his “Workhorse” briars, a collection of lightweight, bamboo-shanked billiard and poker renditions rusticated in a fittingly stony manner. But his Workhorses are not the only pipes made by Romijn that incorporate bamboo, with plenty of his typical, high-grade works also using the material for both aesthetic and practical purposes. This pipe, for example, is a beautiful, slightly rugged sitter, blending the Dublin and poker forms, with incredibly fine straight grain lining its bowl and a dense field of live plateaux covering its rim. The use of bamboo here adds an element of contrast against the darker tones of the bowl and mouthpiece, while helping to keep the overall design relatively lightweight. A nice final touch is Romijn’s use of a flare at the base of the pipe’s hand-cut ebonite mouthpiece, which ensures that the button itself keeps a clean distance between it and whatever surface the pipe is set on.   Details: Length: 5.8″ / 147.3mm Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm Bowl Depth: 1.48″ / 37.59mm Weight: 1.4oz / 42g