Because I paid less than $100 for it when @pipestud put it on auction in 2016? Including shipping. Hadn’t even come close to being broken in. Guess the previous owner thought it was ugly, too. Steve’s pictures were maybe less than flattering. And that red Trademark finish has never been popular in the US. But I knew exactly what to expect. Smokes sweeter than a Snickers Candy bar, drier than a popcorn fart. They play around with the way the carve the bowl shapes on 55’s, but the basic premise of the 55 shape remains the same, wide bowl pot on a short, slightly bent shank = smoking machine.
Why the pricing? Well, they use briar that they have aged 8-10 years or more, have 6 people making pipes, and their “failings” go into a pile they burn in the wood stove in the winter. There isn’t a line of Castello seconds, as with Ser Jacopo (Le Fuma) or Dunhill (various names at various times, like Parker). That is a more costly practice, when you tote up the costs in waste materials it takes to produce 3500 firsts a year, than most realize.
And Franco Coppo has a good lifestyle, as did Carlo Scotti before him (search for a picture of him and see how he dressed). And Coppo is a truly nice man by all accounts. His nickname, Kino, means friend. He takes care of his dealers, so they make decent money stocking the line at a premium price point. Everybody has to eat, and nobody in the Castello production/marketing channel has to scrounge around soup kitchens.
Italians understand luxury goods and how to market them. Add up the Italian luxury good lines you can think of, and it is a big source of exports, which the country has always needed. The Italian government has the equivalent of a Knighthood that they have awarded to designers. Carlo Scotti is, AFAIK, the only pipe maker so honored
I think the value from a smoking perspective is outstanding, though I tend to like older examples of shapes more than I do more recent production, but that is a personal quirk that isn’t just true of pipes for me.
