Georg Huber Collection Billiard 35/160 Smooth Vertical Grain Silver Band Estate Pipe

Thirty-five of one hundred sixty. That number is engraved into the silver itself, not printed on a card that ends up lost in a drawer - a limited run, and this is one specific pipe within it.

This is a Georg Huber collection pipe, marked on the pipe with the nomenclature HUBER COLLECTION and the edition number 35/160. It is a straight billiard, smooth finish, with vertical grain. The mouthpiece is acrylic, tapered, cut with a fishtail slot for a 9mm filter. A silver band at the shank is engraved GEORG HUBER 2000.

The billiard is the shape most collectors learn to judge every other shape against: a cylindrical bowl set at roughly ninety degrees to a straight shank, the walls running parallel from rim to heel, the profile clean enough that nothing about a finish or a grain pattern has anywhere to hide. A straight billiard is built to be held and read as much as it is smoked.

Vertical grain is what a briar cutter gets when a block is cut along the direction the wood actually grew, rather than across it, which is what produces the flame or birds-eye figure seen on other blocks. A smooth finish leaves that grain fully exposed under wax or oil, with no sandblasting or rustication laid over it to hide flaws. On a straight-walled bowl, vertical grain reads as continuous lines running the full height of the chamber wall - the kind of figure a cutter sets a block aside for rather than the kind that turns up by accident.

The 9mm filter changes the mechanics of the smoke without changing the shape of the pipe. The bore is cut to accept a standard balsa or charcoal filter, and the fishtail slot at the button spreads the draw across a wider opening rather than a single round hole, so the smoke does not concentrate on one point of the tongue. Acrylic is used here for the stem rather than vulcanite - acrylic does not oxidize into the yellow-green cast that rubber stems develop with age and UV exposure, so its color today is close to what it left the workbench as.

Silver banding at the shank is typically hallmarked or engraved to record an owner, a dedication, a model name, or an edition, exactly as this one does with GEORG HUBER 2000. A band cut and fitted this way is a small piece of separate metalwork, sized to the shank and set flush against the briar, and it is usually the first place a collector looks for a name or a date on a pipe that carries one.

Condition: tiny dents are present on the mouthpiece. No other condition issues are reported.

THE MARKS
- Marked HUBER COLLECTION
- Edition number 35/160
- Silver band engraved GEORG HUBER 2000

THE MEASUREMENTS
- Length: 148mm / 5.9"
- Bowl height: 50mm / 2.0"
- Bowl width: 39mm / 1.6"
- Bowl depth: 45mm / 1.8"
- Chamber diameter: 20mm / 0.8"
- Weight: 1.46 oz
- Filter: 9mm

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

SKU: SKU-021