Rossi TORINO 30 136 Large Smooth Straight Billiard, Oval Shank — Italian Estate

This reference example documents a large smooth straight billiard by Rossi of Italy, carried in the TORINO line and bearing the shape number 30 136. The pipe presents the billiard form — the most enduring and widely produced shape in the history of pipe making — characterised by a cylindrical bowl set at an even angle to a straight shank, here executed in an oval-shank variation that flattens the shank's cross-section for a broader, more hand-filling profile. Rossi occupies a significant place in Italian pipe history. The operation shared its Varese-area roots with Savinelli, which later revived the Rossi name as a value-oriented marque; examples marked in the older factory style are generally associated with the original works. Dating rests on the stampings reported in the source: the TORINO line name and the numeric shape designation 30 136. Line names and shape numbering conventions can narrow production windows when cross-referenced against catalogue records, but on the evidence recorded here the honest conclusion is a twentieth-century Italian production with the precise era undetermined. The pipe is preserved in the archive as a representative example of the Rossi TORINO line and of the oval-shank billiard as interpreted by one of Italy's great volume producers.