1995 Bentley Jahrespfeife by Former - Schneiderwind Aachen Since 1846 - Silver - Unsmoked

A shop in Aachen has been selling pipes since 1846. Once a year, they made their own.

This is one of them.

Every year from 1987, Pfeifen-Schneiderwind of Aachen ordered a small run of pipes carrying their own name - a Jahrespfeife, the pipe of the year. You couldn't order one from a catalogue. You walked into the shop, and that year, this is what they had made. A different maker each time: Stanwell one year, Brebbia another.

For 1995 they went to a Dane in Switzerland.

The pipe is stamped BENTLEY - the brand of Hans "Former" Nielsen. Before Bentley existed, Former ran the pipe workshop at W.O. Larsen in Copenhagen: hired at twenty-one, he rose to foreman, and his job was deciding which pipes were good enough to carry Larsen's name. He graded them. He trained the carvers - Teddy Knudsen, Tonni Nielsen, Jess Chonowitsch - and taught Else Larsen, the first woman to make pipes in Denmark.

In 1986 he was asked to take over an old Swiss factory at Kleinluetzel and build something new under an English name. He spent ten years there. Every Bentley was his design, and nothing left that bench without his eye on it.

So the shop that had been selling pipes for a century and a half went to the man who had spent a career deciding what was good enough. That is what you are holding.

Turn it to the silver.

The sterling band is engraved "Aachen 1995 exclusiv fuer Schneiderwind" beside the 925 hallmark. Not a model number. Not a batch code. The year, and the name of the shop it was made for.

It has never been smoked. No cake in the chamber. No tooth marks. The stem is as it left Switzerland, and the bowl is bare briar. Someone bought it, put it away, and it waited thirty years.

THE MARKS
- BENTLEY - the maker, serif capitals on the shank
- Schneiderwind in script, W.O. SELECTION beneath - the Aachen house mark
- Sterling band: 925, engraved "Aachen 1995 exclusiv fuer Schneiderwind"
- 9mm filter

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 155mm (6.2") - bowl height 58mm (2.3") - bowl width 42mm (1.7") - chamber depth 50mm (2.0") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 2.0 oz

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

There was one year. A small number were made. This one was never lit.

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping.

SKU-219