American Estates: Maigurs Knets Sandblasted Freehand (397) (Unsmoked) Tobacco Pipe

Latvian-born Maigurs Knets grew up with art, drawing and sculpting for much of his childhood and, though he had found other hobbies, art has remained his passion throughout his life. After service as a border guard, he enrolled in art college, earning degrees in Antique Furniture Restoration, Wood Carving, and Sculpting, after which point he emigrated to the United States in 1990. After arriving, he found work as a modeler for the toy, industrial design, and hobby sectors, finding success, though not able to express his artistic inclination for 20 years. Through pipes, however, he found his passion rekindled, stoked into a blaze which finds him creating sculptural works of functional art that are innovative, beautiful, and smoke excellently.

This Freehand is one of the most reserved pipes we've seen from Knets, boasting a shape similar to that of the bent Billiard, but complete with a firm, muscular styling up front that sets it apart from the classic archetype. The transition is wide, with plenty of room to drape a digit, and it gives way to an extremely short, ovoid shank that tapers as it lifts to meet the stem: a sleekly tapering stretch of demurely curved black vulcanite. The combination of shank and stem do well to poise this pipe for comfortable smoking, its curvature pulling a bit of the visual weight away from the far more robust bowl. This bowl stands atop a sweeping heel that supports thick walls as they take on a slight, arcing taper to the rim, the aft portion of the bowl surrounded by a wrapping ridgeline that curls around the fore as it rises from the flanks of the aft side near the transition. Complete with plenty of comfortable curves, though still showcasing some firm-lined muscularity, this pipe offers plenty of room to showcase a crisp, lightly-stained sandblast that reveals a wealth of handsome grain throughout.