Freehands Are Passe?

I had my freehand collection period a decade or so ago. Still have a few Preben Holm and Ben Wade pieces, and while amazing to look at, they've just become too cumbersome to be regular smokers. As long as there are artisans, they will always be around, but I think they are more of a niche market.

Maybe the popularity of Danish freehands (what comes to mind, of course is Preben Holm) is not what it was in the '70s, but there's any number of artisan pipes out there that continue to defy classic categories. Heck, even some Italian factory shapes -- not freehand by definition, but with fluid shapes inspired by them -- are hard to pigeonhole.
And of course, a whole set of modern designs have emerged: blowfish, elephant foot, nautilus, chubbies, the curvy, reverse calabashes, Devil Anse, etc.
Maybe the retailer was just trying to explain recent sales trends, which I can understand.

Even with classic shapes, artisans can add a bit of freehand flare to them.

:mrgreen:

I just noticed the BBCode for rant mode. :clap:

...Danish freehand pipes were big in the 1970s but are "no longer in vogue" and have little value in the market.

Click to expand...

There's a bit of fuzziness definition-wise, but if the style he was referring to are the standard and sitter "flower" designs with flared shanks and stick bits, he's right.
Any check of Ebay will confirm they have low value.

The person also said that it takes far greater skill to carve conventional, traditional shapes than freehands.

Click to expand...

No doubt whatsoever about that. The reason is that improvisational/free-form pipes can, by definition, be anything. As long as the finished result is pleasing to the eye, it's "correct."
English standards, on the other hand, require things be in certain proportions down to a few hundredths of an inch to look right. In some cases, a few thousandths. And when a briar flaw or shaping mistake changes one surface or line, most---and sometimes ALL---the other surfaces or lines must be adjusted accordingly.
Any established carver who makes (or has made) both free form and classic pipes will readily confirm that the latter are much more difficult to do acceptably well. (Sas, you out there?)

Any established carver who makes (or has made) both free form and classic pipes will readily confirm that the latter are much more difficult to do acceptably well. (Sas, you out there?)

Click to expand...

When I first started carving, Bruce Weaver told me to master the humble billiard before moving on to anything.

There was a huge craze for the style and a lot of mediocre ones were done -- you don't have to carve the stem to fit the shank and so forth. I've run into eight or ten at once in an antique store and I wouldn't have owned any of them. However, I have several well-loved versions, a smooth Johs tomahawk with plateau on the brim and shank; a Nording signature with deep folds in the bowl; and a Thompson Cigar house pipe stamped "West Germany." I also have a great Jerry Perry freehand pocket pipe in Cocobolo, not much Danish, but a really advanced pocket pipe design. So I love the freehand shape when it's done with aplomb and style. Obviously the shape isn't going anywhere.

they've just become too cumbersome to be regular smokers.

Click to expand...

Freehands are indeed clumsy and hard to clench, but for older smokers, like myself, they fill a vital niche. They are great smokers and have enough heft to them I can fend off stray dogs and feral children that roam the neighborhood. Not as good as a full-blown club, yet far better than say a group 2 Dunhil.

I think there will always be a certain level of popularity for freehands. Sure more classic factory made shapes are sold than freehands, because more of those are MADE than freehands. I am a lover of both. But I must say I get the most enjoyment from the freehands as no two are ever perfectly alike in shape.

I know there are many if not all retailers that prefer classic shapes over freehand shapes. You'll often see a maker who's been in the industry for a while who can nail the classics but also makes shapes out of the norm. I started with solely freehand for my first 50-100 pipes (hence the name Vermont Freehand that stuck)and to be honest it got me nowhere financially though I had a ton of fun. My goal wasn't to make money on the pipes so it was good in my book. But as I started to want to make money on the pipes, I realized that the majority of the market wants classic shapes. And for the learning process, as JT Cooke would say, if you can make a good billiard you can make anything. I say stick with what you like, and if sales or retailers are your concern, listen to the advice they have. When first timers come to me through my supply business, I try to veer them towards the classic shapes. Seeing thousands of guys get into the industry every year, the ones who get into retailers and higher prices are the ones who nail the classics. At the end of the day there are still many people who are most happy making freehands even if they are not critique-able. In the words of Rad Davis, "hope this helps"

Sorry Oldmojo, but you are simply wrong if you think that the 70s style Ben Wade freehands are as difficult as a "factory" shape. They aren't. And bad ones abound. The good ones are real nice, and the style has evolved through the last 40 years to where "anything goes" just isn't the case. The best carvers are using mathematical curves, deeply thoughtful aesthetic notions, and taking pointers from many cultural traditions. Simply grabbing a hunk of wood and shaping it and popping a stem in... well anyone can do it, lots do, and the pipes aren't worth much.
So maybe what the retailer was politely indicating was that he didn't want to put a bunch of money into stock he didn't want to sell, or maybe he was politely indicating that he didn't think the pipes were great, and that rather than offer a carver a pittance (again to carry merchandise they don't think is going to move), it's best just to move on. In either case, the retailer is well within their rights to control what they sell, what moves through their supply chain.
There's a pile of carvers out there right now who think that shaping and sanding, making something interesting and smooth, with nice grain, and usually about 15 different adornments... (hey if horn is nice, horn and bloodwood would be better, and if horn and bloodwood is better, horn and bloodwood and black palm and a bullet casing and some bamboo would be WICKED, right?) is the same as making really good pipes. It ain't. And the reason it isn't is that the technical skill required to make these things is far, far less than the technical skill required to make a really good pipe. Any good carver could run one of these Instagram pipes out in about 4 hours, and the reverse is not true - if these guys could make a really good pipe, they would, because you get paid a lot more for it.
So my rant here (and I have no idea what your pipes look like Oldmojo, this isn't directed right at you) is the opposite - there's a growing number of carvers who have not bothered to understand what makes a pipe "nice" what makes a pipe "right" or "good", what makes a pipe "well carved" as opposed to simply "unique". And these guys are always moaning about how great their talent is, how powerful their art is, and how slowwwww their pipes sell.
I went back to making billiards because frankly I am too stupid to be cutting edge as an artist, and what I learned in doing so is that there are a hundred little perfections in every pipe (every shape), and that the best pipes show (to the knowledgeable) these off, no matter what the style.

As always, Todd has hit the nail on the head. As much as it may pain some to hear.

This pipe might get accolades in some circles.


It's simply not quite as well wrought as this one (a year later)

But most people wouldn't be able to describe why.

Just because they are not popular, doesn't mean that it should lose any value to you. I'm sure that there are lots of other people that love those also. What I think the retailer means is that he finds freehands to be a product that doesn't move very fast, meaning that not as many people want to buy them as they used to. In what I see in hanging out at The Briary is that in my five or so years of hanging out there, that the popular styles have changed from Danish high ends to "average Joe" English made pipes. Meaning, that when I was first hanging out there, the majority of people that come in looking for a pipe, were asking about S. Bangs, Eltangs, or Dansk. Now, I overhear more men asking about older GBDs, Sasienis, or Charatans. These are just what the majority of shoppers are looking for. Not, that no one ever wants an Italian pipe any more, but just that the retailers are more likely to keep the pipes in higher demand on hand. BTW, The Briary still has a few freehands, but you'd have to knock the dust off of them, as no one has touched one of them in years.

Cosmic- your experience isn't untrue. However all three of the men you mentioned could (and do) make all the classic shapes and make them quite well.

Scotties22, we seem to have a disconnect. I have not been smoking pipes long enough to ever see a trend for freehands. I was referring exclusively to the classic shapes by all mentioned. What I mean is, that Danish high-ends were popular for a while, and now it is mid-range English pipes, as per The Briary.

Sasquatch-
Thanks for the explanation both verbal and visual. I can see some major differences between the two, agree that the later rendition is way better, but I'd be a fool to try to verbalize why in this company.
Oldmojo- One tiny bit of market info, an insignificant single point: I bought one Danish freehand 50 years ago, and have not bought another. Now, if sasquatch's second pipe is a true freehand, I'm in for another. Just different strokes for different folks, but I also imagine the bigger market for Danish freehands was some decades ago. Doesn't mean your work has less merit than others, just that tastes and markets change.

Yeh, in my own work, I stay 180 degrees away from whatever is trending/popular in jewelry, so that the anti-fashioned always has someone making things that go against the trends.

Sas, I'll definitely take your word on the two pipes shown, but call me crazy, I like the shape of the older one better...!