This is a story about potential and a bit of risk-taking to fulfil it. When I pulled this pipe from the refurb box, I immediately felt that it wasn’t quite living up to its potential, not necessarily as a functional pipe, but rather as an “objet d’art”. Pipes, in my mind, fall into that rare category of things that serve a simple function but can also be beautiful works of art in their own right. This large Butz-Choquin sitter was several points off course in that respect. It’s shape seemed heavy and ponderous, and to top it off, it had been “customized” by a previous owner who carved a linear design around the bowl, and signed it with a large “SK” on the bottom. He was presumably proud of his handiwork, but it did not ring any aesthetic or artistic bells for me.

Apart from the custom carvings, the pipe was…