TOMA Bent Billiard Smooth Briar Estate Pipe - Acrylic Taper Stem, Fishtail, 9mm Filter, Double Band

The shank carries a single stamp: TOMA. No country mark, no shape number, nothing else. That is the whole of what this pipe tells you about its maker, and we print nothing beyond it.

What is certain is the pipe itself: a bent billiard in a smooth briar finish, fitted with an acrylic taper stem cut to a fishtail bit, a thin double band at the shank, and a chamber built to take a 9mm filter. It has been smoked and is offered in very good estate condition.

The billiard is the reference shape against which every other bowl is judged - a round bowl of even wall thickness set on a shank in a fairly conservative ratio of height to diameter, meant to sit upright in a rack and to be gripped without ceremony. Bent here means the shank and stem sweep downward from the bowl rather than running straight out from it, which changes how the pipe rides in the hand and in the teeth: a bent billiard tends to hang lower and clench easier than its straight sibling, at some cost to how deep the draw feels. The bend has no bearing on bowl geometry itself; the chamber above is still a billiard chamber, upright walls, flat-ish floor, built for an even burn from rim to heel.

The stem is acrylic, cut as a taper rather than a saddle - it narrows steadily from the shank face to the bit rather than stepping down to a slimmer section first. A taper stem sits flush with the shank in profile, which is part of why billiards are read as the plain, classic cut of the family. Acrylic itself does not oxidize the way vulcanite does; it will not green or sulphur-stain with air and light over years of storage, which is one reason estate pipes in acrylic often arrive with stems in cleaner cosmetic condition than their vulcanite counterparts of the same age.

The bit is cut fishtail: the slot at the tip flares into two shallow points rather than terminating in a single round hole. A fishtail spreads the airflow across a wider opening at the point where the smoke reaches the tongue, and many smokers find it sits more comfortably between the teeth than a narrow button. It is a common pairing with filtered pipes, since the wider slot compensates somewhat for the airflow a filter element removes.

The chamber is bored for a 9mm filter, and the shank carries a thin double band. A band at this join does one of two jobs, sometimes both: it reinforces a shank that has been bored out to take a filter adapter, where the wall is thinner than on a plain airway pipe, and it dresses the joint where wood meets stem. Nothing about the band's material is stated here, so nothing about it is claimed beyond its presence and its placement.

THE MARKS
- TOMA, stamped on the shank

The pipe is pre-smoked and graded very good by the seller. No cracks, chips, or repairs are reported.

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

THE MEASUREMENTS
- Length: 131.0mm
- Bowl height: 48.0mm
- Bowl width: 36.0mm
- Chamber diameter: 20.0mm
- Chamber depth: 41.0mm
- Weight: 49.0g

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

SKU: 435