Fritz Becker and Becker Pipes

Becker is the name of an Italian pipe workshop carried on for three generations in Rome. Its founder, Fritz Becker, was an unusual name for the Italian pipe world; he came to the bench only in middle age, after a long life spent in painting and translation. Records place his birth in Vienna in 1921, to a Jewish family; he left Austria after its annexation in 1938. Accounts of his escape route differ — some point to the Balkans, others to England. What is agreed is that this refugee, who spoke five languages, worked as a linguist and translator for British intelligence during the war years and, as the front advanced north, reached Rome and stayed.

The Attic on Campo de' Fiori

After the war Becker continued his translation work while also making a name as a painter, sculptor and designer; he is said to have also served as the World Jewish Congress's representative to the Vatican. He took an attic in the Campo de' Fiori district as his workshop. He first came into contact with pipes in 1944, and over the years made a habit of reworking, in his own way, the pipes that came his way; where this tinkering was headed was clear, and in 1970 he made his first pipe himself.

The pursuit stopped being an idle hobby after 1974. His son Paolo, who had a knack for machine work, began coming regularly to the attic, trying out different ways of working briar. Father and son worked in small numbers with premium plateau briar from Calabria in southern Italy, deciding together on shape, balance and smoking behavior.

From the Carmignani Stamp to the Becker Brand

The brand's incubator was Carmignani, one of Rome's oldest pipe shops. The Beckers' first pipes went out unstamped, handed to the shop's more knowledgeable customers for their opinion. From 1975 the same pipes went on sale under the stamp "Carmignani – Hand Made"; by the end of 1978 they had built a settled reputation around the shop. In 1979 the intermediary name was dropped and the Becker signature was struck directly onto the pipes.

That same year, Fritz Becker began marking his quality grades with playing-card symbols. Grades A, B and C were added later, but the symbol-based system remained unchanged; top-grade names such as "four hearts" or "royal flush" still appear in the description of Becker pipes today.

The Musicò Partnership and Continuity

Carmignani's manager, Giorgio Musicò, played a large part in taking the brand beyond Rome. The relationship turned in 1989 into a joint shop called Becker & Musicò and a separate pipe line resting on classic English molds; in this line, Musicò's son Massimo worked alongside Paolo. Around the same time the workshop moved from the attic to a larger space, and Paolo took up the work full time. Records show that in 1981, through the initiative of American importer David Field, the pipes reached the United States, where the brand gained lasting recognition.

Although Fritz Becker stayed in the background through the 1980s, he did not leave the bench. While he stayed close to classic English shapes, Paolo turned toward a neo-classical line; since both hands had a part in the pipes of those years, it is not possible to attribute a single pipe to one maker alone. Fritz died in 1991. Paolo carried on the production, handling every stage himself from shaping the bowl to surface finishing and the stem, until his death in December 2014; alongside contemporaries working as teams, such as Castello or Mastro de Paja, Becker was remembered as a one-man signature. The workshop is carried on today by Paolo's son, Federico Becker.