Savinelli Punto Oro 118 Straight Pot Italy Estate Pipe

SAVINELLI over PUNTO ORO on the left side of the shank, and on the shank the Savinelli shield with 118 KS beside it and ITALY beneath, partly worn. This is a Savinelli Punto Oro straight pot in smooth briar, with the line's small gold dot set into the top of a vulcanite saddle stem.

It carries no filter, and the stem ends in a fishtail mouthpiece. The bowl is a tall cylinder with straight walls, a rounded lower edge and a flat rim.

Savinelli began as a shop, not a factory. In 1876 Achille Savinelli opened a tobacco shop in Milan, and his son Carlo ran it for some fifty years from 1890. Pipe making came in 1948, when Achille Jr. started the family's own production. Pipedia tells it with two partners, Amleto Pome and Mario Vettoruzzo, and fifteen workers in the Varese region; pipephil tells it as a partnership with Enea Buzzi at Brebbia. Both accounts stand side by side. In 1953 the two houses parted and Brebbia went on as its own brand; Savinelli makes its pipes in its own factory at Molina di Barasso. The pipes have been made in Italy ever since, and the fourth generation, Giancarlo Savinelli, has followed.

THE MARKS

- SAVINELLI / PUNTO ORO stamped on the left side of the shank
- The Savinelli shield, 118 KS and ITALY stamped on the shank
- A gold dot on the top of the stem

The dot on the stem is the mark of the line. When the line began is told two ways: Savinelli's Paolo Tamborini said in 2024 that "we started producing Punto Oro in the 50s", while Savinelli's 2015 catalogue calls it the first pipe made after the factory opened in 1958.

KS after the number stands for King Size. In Savinelli's own 2015 catalogue, KS marks the larger group 3.5 to 4 sizes, and a number with no letter is the regular size. The number 118 does not appear on the shape lists we hold, so we name the shape by what the pipe shows: a pot. Savinelli's early shape numbers had four digits and were later reduced to three, so a three-digit number like this belongs to the later system; no year is claimed beyond that.

A pot bowl is the plainest of the straight shapes: a broad, straight-walled cylinder with a flat top and a rounded base. The vulcanite saddle stem steps down from the shank to a slimmer bit, and the fishtail at the tip spreads the draw across the tongue instead of sending it in one narrow stream.

The finish is smooth and glossy. Please see the photographs for the grain and the stain.

Condition: pre-smoked, in good condition. There are faint scratches in the stain around the briar, and a bite mark near the mouthpiece has been repaired. Please see the photographs.

THE MEASUREMENTS

- Length: 145 mm (5.71 in)
- Bowl height: 42 mm (1.65 in)
- Bowl width: 42 mm (1.65 in)
- Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.79 in)
- Chamber depth: 38 mm (1.50 in)
- Weight: 47 g (1.66 oz)

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe. SKU: 071