Bård Hansen (Tabago)

Bård Hansen is a maker producing handmade pipes under the name Tabago in Bergen, Norway. Starting roughly twenty years after factory production in the country had ended, and working on a bench that came directly from the old pipe factory in Lillehammer, set his workshop apart as one continuing a line of Norwegian pipemaking that had otherwise broken off. Throughout the 2000s, the Norwegian press regularly referred to him as "the country's only professional pipemaker."

The Bench from Lillehammer

Series pipe production in Norway had for many years been concentrated at a single address: G. Larsens Pipefabrikk in Lillehammer. The firm, founded in 1844 by turner Guldbrand Larsen (1815-1902), first made meerschaum pipes, shifted its weight toward briar after the 1860s, and sold its products under the name Mesnapipen. The factory closed in 1979; the brand was sold abroad in 1984 and was, by the 2000s, being made by the Danish firm Stanwell.

At the time of the closure, Hans Tandberg, one of the makers who had worked there for many years, bought the factory's machines and material stock and carried on production on his own. By the account given, Hansen went to Lillehammer in 1999 and there met Tandberg, who was preparing to retire; he took over the bench, with the handover made conditional on the buyer also becoming the maker's student. This gave Hansen both a working workshop and years of accumulated briar and ebonite stock. Ebonite remains today the most widely used of mouthpiece materials.

Bergen and Bryggen

According to the records, the first Tabago pipe appeared at the start of the new century. By the workshop's own account, the brand name comes from the word Native Americans used for their smoking implement; Spanish colonizers mistakenly began applying this word to the tobacco plant itself. Because the same name had earlier been used for a pipe brand made in Denmark, the two brands are occasionally confused in collector records.

The workshop moved to Bryggen, on Bergen's harbor, in the mid-2000s. This row of wooden buildings, a remnant of the trading post the Hanseatic League established there in the late Middle Ages, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 and today houses a large number of craft workshops. The knife makers Hansen shares the space with also taught him silverwork. His regular appearances in national newspapers and on television, starting in late 2002, show the small workshop's nationwide recognition.

The Construction of the Pipes

By the workshop's own account, its briar is brought in from Corsica and Catalonia. The pipes concentrate on small and medium sizes; for finish, only smooth surfaces are applied, not sandblast or rustication. Blocks with near-flawless grain are left natural, others are stained; on pipes stained black, the grain is expected to gradually emerge with use. Rounding the rim of the chamber and keeping the angle between chamber and shank low are the two construction details the workshop highlights.

The practice that has done the most to make Hansen known is a mouthpiece carved from briar rather than ebonite; he is noted as the only Scandinavian maker who produces this kind of pipe regularly. The bite end of the wooden mouthpiece is somewhat thicker than an ebonite equivalent: the measurements the workshop gives are roughly 5.5 millimeters against 4-4.5 millimeters. The silver bands frequently seen on the pipes reinforce the shank's weak point and are fitted so as not to break the continuity of the shape; engraving is added on request. On some pipes sent to Iceland, reindeer antler is used in place of silver, because the island's sulfurous air wears down both silver and ebonite quickly.