Lorenzo Spitfire Monteforte Smooth Straight Oval Bowl Estate Pipe 9mm Filter Vulcanite Saddle Stem

The shank on this one carries two names, not one: Spitfire by Lorenzo, and beneath it, Monteforte. Collectors sometimes take Spitfire for a rival house trading on Lorenzo's reputation. It was the opposite arrangement entirely.

This is a smooth-finish straight pipe. The bowl reads as oval when you look at it from outside, but the chamber bored into it stays a plain circle. A vulcanite saddle stem carries a fishtail mouthpiece, bored for a 9mm filter cartridge.

The house behind both names traces back to 1900, when Fratelli Lana was founded in Gallarate - the third pipe-making concern to open in the Varese district, after Rossi in 1886 and Ceresa in 1897. From 1922 the Milan merchant house of Tagliabue carried Lana's pipes into export markets, and by 1939 the factory employed 120 workers turning out budget, mass-market pipes, many stamped with nothing more specific than Genuine Bruyere. In 1946 Tagliabue took the factory over outright and renamed it Manufattura di Pipe Tagliabue. Around 1950 Lorenzo Tagliabue took over its management. He studied the work being done at Castello and Brebbia and pushed the factory toward its own house style and a higher grade of pipe, and in 1969 the firm was renamed Lorenzo Pipes.

The 1970s and 1980s were the years that built the brand's identity: thick-walled bowls, flat sitting bottoms, silk-matte staining in bold red and orange, big Oom Paul shapes, sold in period advertising as pipes for real men with strong hands. It became something of a student-culture icon, generous putty fills included as ordinary factory practice rather than a later repair. Spitfire was born as the budget sister brand of this era - the same Lorenzo models, built 1:1, mostly in smaller classic shapes and bored for the 9mm filter this pipe carries. Lloyd's, by comparison, was strictly a factory second line, not a sister brand at all. Lorenzo Tagliabue retired in 1983, after his daughter's death; the brand was briefly licensed to Comoy's of London and nearly disappeared before Tagliabue died in 1987. In 1988 Riccardo Aliverti and Gabriella Aliverti bought the rights from the family and put the factory back into production, a line that continued through Riccardo's own career at the firm - technical director from 1973 - and through his son Massimo from 1991. Production today splits between Italian-made grades such as One Star, Two Star, Three Star, Moscato, Spumante and Grand Canadian, and budget lines made in Albania by Tomori.

THE MARKS
- "Spitfire by Lorenzo" - the sister-brand stamp
- "Monteforte" - the model name stamped with it

This is a straight pipe, no bend to the shank, built with a bowl shaped oval from the outside while the chamber bored into it stays round. That is a practical answer several Italian factories reached for: shape the exterior to a distinctive silhouette, keep the bore a standard circle, and every reamer and pipe cleaner made for a round chamber still fits. The saddle-cut vulcanite stem steps down from the shank in a flat plane rather than tapering into it, the traditional way of marking a pipe as built for a plain, straight hold rather than a dressier line. The fishtail slot at the bit splits the airway into two channels instead of one round bore, spreading the draw across the tongue - a cut more often paired with filtered pipes, since the 9mm cartridge already narrows and directs the air before it reaches the bit.

The finish is smooth: polished briar, no sandblast, no rustication, the surface left plain rather than textured. Color and grain: see the photographs.

Condition: graded by the seller as good, pre-smoked estate condition. The rim shows darkening from use. Tiny scratches are present through the stain on the bowl. No cracks, dents, or repairs are noted.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 148mm (5.9") - bowl height 50mm (1.9") - bowl width 45mm (1.8") - chamber depth 40mm (1.6") - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8") - weight 1.9 oz - 9mm filter

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

SKU: 024