London Tower Sandblast Bent Billiard - Small Pocket Pipe, Vulcanite Saddle Stem, Unsmoked Estate

Stamped LONDON TOWER on the shank, and nothing else - no country mark, no shape number, no date. What it does carry is a bowl that has never held a match.

This is a small bent billiard in sandblasted briar, sold new and unsmoked, built for a pocket rather than a rack. The stem is vulcanite, cut in a saddle profile, with a fishtail slot at the bit and a metal cooler set into the shank in place of a paper or charcoal filter.

Bend the shank downward from that same bowl and shank geometry and you get the bent billiard: the bowl still reads as a billiard in silhouette, but the shank curves so the stem meets the mouth without forcing the head forward. It is the shape most pipe smokers learn to identify first, because every other shape is described by how it departs from it.

Sandblasting is a finishing process, not a briar grade. A rotary wire brush or an air-driven abrasive strips the softer summer growth out of the grain while leaving the harder winter growth standing proud, so the ridges you feel under a thumb are the wood's own growth rings, raised rather than carved. A blast this even, worked around a bent bowl without flattening at the heel or the transitions, takes a steady hand and a briar block with grain tight enough to survive the abrasion without tearing out in patches.

The saddle stem is a mechanical choice as much as a stylistic one. Rather than tapering flush into the shank diameter, a saddle stem holds its own width and steps down at a visible shoulder where it meets the shank face.

The fishtail bit - a slot that widens into two soft points at the outer edge of the mouthpiece rather than staying a single round hole - spreads the smoke stream slightly as it crosses the lips and is associated with an open, unforced draw. Paired with a metal cooler instead of a paper or charcoal filter cartridge, the airway stays a single uninterrupted bore from tobacco to lip; the cooler's job is to add surface area and a short reservoir that pulls a small amount of heat and moisture out of the smoke without narrowing or gating the draw the way a filter chamber does.

THE MARKS
- LONDON TOWER stamped on the shank

Condition: new, unsmoked. No cake in the chamber, no oxidation on the vulcanite, no tooth marks on the bit. Bare briar throughout the bowl.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 125mm (5.0") - bowl height 42mm (1.7") - bowl width 33mm (1.3") - bowl depth 35mm (1.4") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 1.2 oz

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.

SKU: 131