It would be one of the weakest kkkk Collections I have ever seen. From the way the carving is faceted to catch the grain, I would value it s a Castello "Castello",and in that range kkkk is a reasonable grade. That is a common carving technique on pipes in that range, but much less so in the Collection range, particularly in kkk and kkkk territory
There have been three of these no range specified smooth pipes on eBay auctions in the last few months, two auctioned by Pipestud and this one. The grain on all of these is superior to trademarks, but I can't imagine any Castello retailer who wouldn't raise a fuss if the factory tried to get top of the line Collection money for them. The fact that I have seen three of these in just a few months, and haven't even been trying to find them, should tell you something about the rarity of these pipes.
Oh, I think I have seen one more of these somewhere touted as "pre-collection". I doubt that seriously, as I have seen Italian sources that picture old Ivory white bar pipes that have the collection stamp, and most everybody agrees those are among the earliest Castello's in captivity.
Lots of things are rare to some (not pipestud) eBay sellers. If you shell out money based on such hype, with Castello's in particular you will be surprised at just how large the universe of interesting and in some respects unusual pipes is. More often than not, when I see something that I haven't seen in 35 years of looking at them, within a few weeks the same thing pops up again.
