What are/will be the "classics" of the future?

[Anonymous]

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[Puff Daddy]

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:lol:

I understand what you're saying about having to be able to do something quick enough to make a living, but that defines journeyman, not master, imho. Master craftsman means able to create the best, not "good enough but can make plenty of them". I see the master craftsman as the guy who can slow down a little, turn out the finest of his work, and people will pay top dollar for it because he is turning out the best work. Better than the average journeyman who is just out there making an honest living.

 

[Rad Davis]

I understand what you're saying about having to be able to do something quick enough to make a living, but that defines journeyman, not master, imho. Master craftsman means able to create the best, not "good enough but can make plenty of them". I see the master craftsman as the guy who can slow down a little, turn out the finest of his work, and people will pay top dollar for it because he is turning out the best work. Better than the average journeyman who is just out there making an honest living.

The slow production of somebody who has already lapped the field several times and is now absorbed in where his muse leads him only increases people's interest in what he's doing.

See what Yak did there? He's saying exactly the same thing you are, PD.

Rad

 

[Anonymous]

Stradivari, at his peak (& with his two sons helping him), turned out around 20 instruments a year.

Top modern makers average around four.

The difference is that now their market is international and interconnected. Reaching that Reputation = $$$$ point took Stradivari 50 years. Somebody can start a buzz this week on the next great thing maker and, as we see here with tobaccos and pipes, the thundering herd thunders.

What I'm telling you about time is based on generations'-worth of common knowledge in the violin-&-bow making & restoring trade.

As in anything else, time is money. And in a system where there's no alternative to that (like Cavicchi having farmed during the summer & made pipes during winter down time) (the basis of a LOT of artisan trades in centuries past), it's a see-saw. There's a ceiling to how much you can consistently get, and costs involved. The variable you can manipulate is time.

Short of an essay, that's what I can offer.

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[Rob_In_MO]

One classic of the future: the re-release of the MM Bulldog Cob. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

<img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":facepalm:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f926.png?v=2.2.7"/>

It's a dynamic equation, PeeDee.

Claudio Cavicchi is, IMO, THE master Italian maker. The Artist of pipemaking in Italy.

His work goes cheap in relation to its excellence as Art because he works at breakneck speed. On the basis of having had three of his pipes, when I see one I expect to find marks left on the stummel from the shaping wheel &/or rasps he uses. He uses cast stems that his wife fits & halfass finishes. His tennons show lathe marks & his shoulders aren't polished. For Castello money, people expect Castello polish, and he doesn't eat up hours and hours doing that. He's found the point where the Time and Money curves intersect and makes his living there.

But he makes the tough shapes. And so expertly that they astonish people. I remember TJ's mind being just blown that a CC billiard he got was a "sitter" even though it had no flat on the underside. It was that symmetrical and well-balanced. That level of excellence at 90 miles an hour is the signature of the Master Craftsman.

Castello makes its living with great briar, easy shapes, and a shop full of journeymen polishing what the craftsmen turn out. I.e., they make journeyman polishing time equal money. It works and it works well. But when Ascorti and Radice pulled out, their profile in Art took a gut punch.

Italy is full of good makers. It would not be hard to come up with 20 or so "names" that turn out nice stuff -- almost all of them with the team approach. Even the Sicilians. Some of them manage Castello's level of fit & finish. They're good, commercially viable pipes. But none of them are Cavicchi or, in days past, Radice or Ascorti. (And even there you have the tension between Art and Volume in a nutshell).

100 years ago, MOST of the Names in pipemaking would be working in a factory as foremen or specialist craftsmen.

Bottom line : there's lots of Good out there today. And a lot of "craftsman" hype. But Artists in briar are as rare as they were in 1930 -- maybe rarer. Because people get ahead of themselves and hype provides them with reputations they haven't -- in this old fart's estimation -- earned.

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[Anonymous]

Any fiddle player in even a half decent orchestra could probably turn out -- as soloist -- an acceptable recording of a major concerto -- given enough re-takes & splices.

I remember one recording of the Pagannini 24 caprices that a recording engineer analysed and was amazed to find was a pistache of hundreds of digital punch-ins.

Stuff like that sounds like stuff like that.

Compare Heifetz. RCA booked a recording session for him to record the Walton Concerto. The orchestra's been rehearsed, Heifetz shows up, they roll the tape, and what the conductor & producer think is a trial-run goes down. The orchestra takes a smoke break and the conductor goes looking for Heifetz to go over some spots for the next take. He's on his way out the door with his coat on with a train to catch for his next engagement. That was IT. Print it.

Segovia and Cassals used to amaze recordists with the "one-take" perfection of their playing. They didn't need an afternoon of trying to get something right. And their "right" was head and shoulders above other peoples' garden variety "pretty good." Still is. 80 years later.

That's mastery, PeeDee.

I don't know what "difficult" is.

Either you can play, or you can't.

The term "artist" has been so abused by merchandisers with shlock to sell that it's become meaningless to people in general. Because it's applied to everything, indiscriminately. :twisted:

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[Puff Daddy]

Rad, he's contradicting himself.

The master can slow down and get more $ for his work.
The master is the one who cranks them out.
Stradivarius is the master because he put out 5 times as many and they were better.
Cavicchi i the master because he puts out more and they usually have defects.

Facepalm?

Ya lost me.

PS, Cavicchi is hardly THE master of Italian pipe carving. That suggests high standards, and by your own admission his pipes are often flawed and usually inexpensive. I don't think the same can be said of the Danish masters - Ivarsson, Chonowitsch, Eltang, etc..

From Merriams:

Journeyman:

1. A worker who has learned a trade and works for another person usually by the day

2. an experienced reliable worker, athlete, or performer especially as distinguished from one who is brilliant or colorful.

Master Craftsman:

A person of exceptional skill at something.

 

[Puff Daddy]

Oh, and I'm aware we're digressing into semantic definitions, but it's worth the discussion if we're altering the argument to "Who is and isn't a master pipe carver, and why or why not"?

 

[Anonymous]

The guy I had in mind who slowed down was Beethoven. But I edited that out. Although I suppose you could use Bo Nordh in his place.

If everything I've screeded up to this point hasn't gotten across, I doubt there's be anything I could add that would. But I'll try.

Cavicchi is the Giotto who draws perfect circles, freehand. One of his pipes, or one of Rad's is, as Art, worth 25,000,000 made with frazing machines. Commercially, the 25,000 are a different story. But we're talking about artists here. Not commercially astute manufacturers.

And yes, there is a Dunhill/Barling/Comoy/BBB/Gbd/Sasieni Art -- the art of the frazing machine pipe. Like engravings are lithographs are Art (or can be).

But it's not the same thing.

Polishing average stuff results in polished average stuff. Not art. Art is Art whether it's polished or not. And some of Beethoven's later stuff certainly isn't.

:face:

 

[Puff Daddy]

Well, I'll agree that it's a convoluted defining process at best, given the dynamics of the industry.

How do you deal with Ser Jacopo and Castello who turn out some amazing, high quality work while refusing to let the individual carver be identified, and argue in the same breathe W.O. Larsen who purposely acknowledged the likes of Teddy and Jess and Benni when they turned out the top shelf stuff? To whom goes the credit? Who is the master, and master of what? Business, or carving?

 

[sisyphus]

PS, Cavicchi is hardly THE master of Italian pipe carving.

Anyone who mates a molded stem to their pipe can't be called a master. Cavicchi makes good midgrade pipes, just like 95% of the other Italian makers. I would put Tonino, Maurizio and Baldo out there as Italians who make a nicer pipe than Cavicchi.

 

[Puff Daddy]

I would put Tonino, Maurizio and Baldo out there as Italians who make a nicer pipe than Cavicchi.

I've never handled a Jacono (that I can recall) but I wholeheartedly agree with you on the others.

 

[sisyphus]

and even so, regarding the Italians:

I don't believe in the existence of an "Italian school". The Italians put their twist on English shapes, the same as the North Americans and Eastern Europeans are putting their twist on shapes from the Danish school. Nothing about Italian pipe design warrants giving them the distinction of having their own school. There is nothing that is unique to Italian pipes.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Castellos I have. They're great smokers and are nicely finished. Still a midgrade despite the price tag as far as I'm concerned, and variations on English design, not their own school.

This is a whole different thread, what schools of pipe design exist? Austrian, Meerschaum, Anglo-Franco (because the French are every bit as responsible for there being an English school as the English are), and Danish. That's it really.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Don't get me wrong, I love the Castellos I have. They're great smokers and are nicely finished. Still a midgrade despite the price tag as far as I'm concerned, and variations on English design, not their own school.

What do you consider a high grade? I agree that Castellos are on the overpriced side, but it caused me to wonder what an Italian high grade might be.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I think the original post managed to innocently ninja-troll the conversation, which I've noticed is at least getting less myopic to "who makes the best pipes" to "which group of similar individuals collectively make the best pipes." :lol:

I also think in the Artisan Pipe Era, which is the most profound change in pipe making and buying we share with our smoking forefathers, you cannot separate the little guys from the big guys. They're standing just as tall and in in the limelight today. The game is different, and thus, the future will be different when we look back on today, twenty to forty years from now. Hopefully some of us will be still arguing and shaking our canes at one another like proper old codgers. :heart:

8)

 

[Anonymous]

de gustibus non disputandem.

:evil:

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[Harlock999]

Nothing about Italian pipe design warrants giving them the distinction of having their own school. There is nothing that is unique to Italian pipes.

Nothing, except being instantly recognizable from across a room...

 

[Anonymous]

:cheers:

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[Anonymous]

The violin was designed by the year 1560.

It's been tweaked since, but remains what it's been for 450 years.

That said, you can recognise a French, German or Italian violin at a glance.

How many artists have re-designed the human body ?

Or felt any need to ?

Shees . . .

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