Dura Pipes (Dura Semjaniv)

Dura Pipes is the name of the workshop that the Swedish maker Dura Semjaniv (d. 2008) ran alone in the south of the country. Semjaniv came to the craft not from a pipe-making bench but from behind a tobacco counter: while running a tobacconist's shop in Malmö, he learned to repair customers' pipes, and from there moved on to making his own. His limited annual output and his shape vocabulary tied to classic proportions made his name known mostly among collector circles; his pipes carry the stamp "Dura Sweden."

From Repair Bench to Maker

A long-established tobacconist's shop called Pip-Larsson, opened in Malmö in 1905, existed; Semjaniv bought it in 1985. He kept up the repair service the shop's former owner, Olle Jonsson, had run, acquired the necessary tools, and learned the trade from Jonsson. The years spent on repair steered him toward making his own pipes. On a customer's recommendation he reached the maker Arne Ljung, who worked in the Limhamn district of Malmö; Ljung was past eighty at the time, and Semjaniv received from him both briar blocks and the fundamentals of the craft. The closeness that formed between the two makers resulted, after Ljung's death, in the tools from his workshop and five folders full of classic shape drawings passing to Semjaniv; records indicate that in these drawings the bulldog family carried a notable weight.

Stamp, Material, and Style

The stamp on the pipes always carries the same text: "Dura Sweden" and a two-digit year. The form of the stamp shows three periods: first a circular stamp, then a stamp in a straight line, and around 2004 a special stamping press acquired added Sweden's three-crown (tre kronor) coat of arms beneath the straight line. It is reported that this press was obtained from the Danish maker Tom Eltang, and that because its striking depth was adjustable, the stamp did not wear away in later polishing. A stamp sitting cleanly on briar's hard, mostly rounded surface is a known difficulty in pipe making.

Semjaniv often used other materials for the shank and bit; bamboo, boxwood, and horn lead the list. Since finding good-quality bamboo grew difficult in the 2000s, he had built up a stock to last for years. Records indicate he completed around seventy-five pipes a year, and that a significant share of his work went to countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan, and the United States. His style is regarded as one that never strayed from classic proportions while still not shying away from stepping outside familiar moulds.

Arlöv, Lund, and the Workshop's End

Semjaniv sold the shop in 1995; since its new owner did not continue the tobacco business, Pip-Larsson turned into a gift shop. He moved his bench to his home in Arlöv and used a room the size of a pantry as a workshop. When he moved with his family to Lund in 2003, this room was replaced by a sizeable section in the outbuildings. In those years the number of pipe makers active in Sweden was around five, and two of them worked in Lund within walking distance of each other: Semjaniv and Bengt Carlson.

Records indicate that Semjaniv, who was also among the founding members of the Swedish Pipe Club (Svenska Pipklubben), died on 19 January 2008. Since the workshop closed with him, the Dura name is today known only through pieces in second-hand circulation.