Nording Danmark 4 Really Rare Paneled Freehand Briar Plateau Rim Estate Pipe

A single 4 over NØRDING and DANMARK, stamped under the shank near its rough end. This is a Nording freehand cut with flat panels around the bowl and plateau left on the rim, the bottom of the bowl and the end of the shank, on a vulcanite freehand stem with a fishtail mouthpiece. It is a rare Nording.

The bowl is smooth and carries flat faces with sharp edges between them. The shank widens toward a plateau end, and the black stem has a ringed section near the shank before it runs out into a long, flat bit with a gentle bend. It has no filter.

Erik Nørding did not start as a pipe maker. He was a blacksmith at fifteen and then an engineer in his father's razor-blade factory. He built pipe machinery for a repairman named Skovbo, and when the bill was not paid the two became partners instead, each borrowing 5,500 dollars. Their pipes were stamped SON, for Skovbo Og Nørding, in the early 1960s. Skovbo soon left, telling his partner he would never be a pipemaker; under their agreement Nørding kept the company and paid Skovbo off over five years. He went on with SON pipes for only a year or two, then renamed the company NØRDING in the mid-1960s.

At first the workshop made nothing but freehands, graded A, B, C and D, with EXTRA at the top and an F grade added later. In the freehand boom years it grew to 52 workers; by the time of an interview around 2001 it was about six makers turning out some 15,000 pipes a year. The briar came from Corsica and Greece.

THE MARKS

- 4 / NØRDING / DANMARK stamped under the shank

Nording identifies its pipes mainly by grade and line rather than by a shape chart, and no Nording shape chart is known to us. The 4 is listed here exactly as stamped; we do not claim what it means. The NØRDING name itself places the pipe after the company took that name in the mid-1960s; DANMARK gives no narrower date.

A freehand follows the block, not a chart, and this one shows how far a carver can take that idea. Instead of smoothing the bowl into one round form, the cutter left it in panels, flat faces that catch the light differently as the pipe turns in the hand. The vulcanite freehand stem keeps to the same spirit, and the fishtail at the bit spreads the draw across the tongue instead of sending it in one narrow stream.

Plateau is the rough top of the briar burl, the part that grew just under the bark. On this pipe it was kept in three places: on the rim, on the bottom of the bowl and on the end of the shank where the stem goes in. Against the smooth panels its texture makes a strong contrast. Please see the photographs for the grain and the plateau.

Condition: pre-smoked, in very good condition. Please see the photographs.

THE MEASUREMENTS

- Length: 158 mm (6.22 in)
- Bowl height: 57 mm (2.24 in)
- Bowl width: 47 mm (1.85 in)
- Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.79 in)
- Chamber depth: 44 mm (1.73 in)
- Weight: 78 g (2.75 oz)

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe. SKU: 476