ABOUT MY PIPES...

My pipes are mostly made of briar. Although I don't use other materials as much, there are several pipes made of bog oak (morta), olivewood, strawberry tree, or some other wood in my collection. Most of my pipes are smoothly finished with glossy shine from carnauba wax. I use all kinds of exotic materials for pipe decorations, mostly deer antlers, horns, boxwood, karelian birch, cocobolo, bocote or some other type of hardwood. Bamboo is also a great material, and I use it often, when pipe design allows such an intervention.

Briar, being a well known material, by its beauty and other features takes the first place among pipe making materials. The briar I use comes mostly from Italy, and then I also have a certain amount of blocks from Spain and a few blocks of Croatian briar, excavated from the Croatian islands. Croatian briar is much sweeter in taste than the other ones I work with.

Bog Oak (Morta) has become a popular material in pipe making in the last few years. Basically, Morta is fossilized wood, excavated from riverbeds or swamps where it has been lying for thousands of years. Here in Croatia we have a lot of sites where fossilized wood has been dug out. It has mostly been used for furniture and house furnishing. Morta pipes are beautifully black with interesting smoking capabilities and a great durability.

Olive is the other very important material that I use in pipe making. I have several olive pipes in my personal collection and I smoke them very often. Balkan mixtures together with Virginia tobaccos blend beautifully with olivewood, creating softer and milder smoke than having been smoked in briar, for example. The blocks of olivewood that I work with, come from Greece or Italy, and I have a certain amount of Croatian olivewood blocks, harvested in the coastal region of the Adriatic Sea.

50 year old pipes are a limited series, drilled and roughly shaped over 50 years ago in a famous Cellini pipe factory in Chicago. The Cellini brand was known as Victory Pipe Craftsmen Association (which was their corporative name). The Cellini pipes were sold exclusively in the shop in front of the Cellini factory. Cellini pipes were famous all over the world, and can still be bought nowadays on the estate market at fairly decent prices. Those pipes are also very valuable to collectors. Store and factory were closed in the late 80's, shortly after the death of their founder Elliot Silber, and what was left were thousands of half finished stummels in many various shapes. The small amount of those stummels ended up in my workshop.
So, I do final drillings and shaping, sanding, staining, polishing. I make stems for them and the final result is amazing! The wood is beautifully dry and almost light red in colour, and they smoke wonderfully sweet. It would be a real shame thet they go to waste, after all - they are a part of history!

Tampers are well known tools, used for tamping tobacco while smoking. Sometimes I make batch of tampers just for the fun of it, and sometimes they come as a gift with some of my pipes. Usually the pipe and the tamper are made of the same material (for example if the pipe is made of briar and has a ring made of a deer antler, then the tamper will also be made of briar and deer antler). I make them freehanded and each of them is a unique piece, just as my pipes are. They come in all possible combinations, sizes and styles. If a pipe has a tamper that goes with it, then it is customary in the photo together with the pipe.

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Briar
Sandblasted egg

Sandblasted egg with smooth bowl rim and pink/black swirled ebonite

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Briar
Sandblasted egg with karelian birch

Sandblasted egg in orange/black contrast finish and karelian birch shank end

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Morta
Sandblasted freehand cherrywood

Sandblasted freehand cherrywood shaped pipe with cumberland shank end and stem

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Briar
Smooth bent tomato

DOUBLE BOR GRADE PIPE

Smooth bent tomato with karelian birch

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Briar
Sandblasted egg

Sandblasted bent egg with karelian birch

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Briar
Sandblasted bamboo dublin

Sandblasted bamboo dublin with saddle stem

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Briar
Smooth straight grain dublin

BOR GRADE PIPE

Smooth straight grain dublin in natural finish with boxwood ring and cumberland saddle stem

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Briar
Smooth dublin

Smooth straight dublin in contrast stain finish

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Morta
Sandblasted egg

Sandblasted straight egg with cool colored tappered stem

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Morta
Sandblasted pot

Sandblasted straight pot with tappered stem

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Briar
Sandblasted cherrywood

Sandblasted cherrywood with saddle stem and natural finish

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Briar
Rusticateg short egg

Rusticated short egg in dark finish

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Briar
Smooth egg

Smooth crosscut egg in contrast stained finish

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Morta
Sandblasted bent dublin

Sandblasted bent dublin with light orange ebonite saddle stem

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Briar
Sandblasted bamboo dublin

Sandblasted dublin with 7-knuckle bamboo

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Morta
Sandblasted nosewarmer

Sandblasted nosewarmer with black&white ebony and yellow ebonite mouthpiece

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Morta
Sandblasted tomatto with spalted maple

Sandblasted tomato with sandblasted spalted maple and smooth boxwood shank end

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Morta
Sandblasted nosewarmer with karelian birch

Sandblasted nosewarmer with karelian birch and green ebonite mouthpiece

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Briar
Smooth stacked billiard

Smooth crosscut stacked billiard in contrast finish and blackberry colored stem

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Briar
Smooth bulldog

Smooth bulldog with karelian birch

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Briar
Smooth bamboo tomato

Smooth tomato with 4-knuckle bamboo

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Morta
Sandblasted nosewarmer

Sandblasted nosewarmer with briar and spalted maple rings

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Morta
Sandblasted nosewarmer brandy

Sandblasted nosewarmer brandy with karelian birch shank end

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Briar
Rusticated freehand in black

Rusticated black freehand with aubergine colored stem

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Olivewood
Smooth tilted egg

Smooth tilted egg with sand colored saddle stem

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