I recommend the Butz-Choquin Caprice bent billiard as a good choice for a first serious briar.
It retails at about $70 online, tobaccopipes.com among other places. It is a black rusticated
briar, with a silver-colored band and a bright but not garish raspberry colored stem. It's a
comfortable price point for pipers who want more than a basket pipe but don't feel comfortable
getting into the $100 range for a first "important" briar pipe. It's light weight but holds plenty of
tobacco, and is a Group 4 size. Just enjoying the last of my current supply of Nat Sherman 536,
an especially skillful English blend from the Manhattan tobacconist, in my Caprice, which is now
fully broken in. In the interest of giving relatively new pipers a good start, I thought I'd pass along
this recommendation. It is closer to my fiftieth pipe than my first, but it's still as good.
It retails at about $70 online, tobaccopipes.com among other places. It is a black rusticated
briar, with a silver-colored band and a bright but not garish raspberry colored stem. It's a
comfortable price point for pipers who want more than a basket pipe but don't feel comfortable
getting into the $100 range for a first "important" briar pipe. It's light weight but holds plenty of
tobacco, and is a Group 4 size. Just enjoying the last of my current supply of Nat Sherman 536,
an especially skillful English blend from the Manhattan tobacconist, in my Caprice, which is now
fully broken in. In the interest of giving relatively new pipers a good start, I thought I'd pass along
this recommendation. It is closer to my fiftieth pipe than my first, but it's still as good.