Directory of Spanish Pipe Brands

Directory of Spanish Pipe Brands brings together, in alphabetical order, pipe names founded in Spain, run by Spanish makers, or based on production in Spain. The center of gravity of pipe making in the country was for a long time Catalonia: both the mills that cut briar logs and the first series-production workshops were concentrated in this region. By contrast, Madrid formed its own strand through a culture of tobacconists and clubs, and Extremadura through a rural craft tradition working wood and stone. The entries below summarize only documented facts; points on which the sources are silent are stated openly.

Brands

• Anfield — The name of one of the pipe series released by the firm Ibérica de Pipas. The records give no further detail on the series' production period or quality tier.

• Antonio Sanmartin — Spanish pipe maker Antonio Sanmartin Abad stamps his pipes with his own name. The workshop's location and scale of production do not appear in the records.

• Arturo del Pozo — Named after Arturo del Pozo, a pipe enthusiast and one of the first to open a specialized tobacconist's shop in Madrid; the brand's pipes were made to order for his shops. Del Pozo was influential in the founding of pipe clubs in Spain and is regarded as the founder of Madrid's pipe club.

• Carsipe — Carles Royo Porta makes handmade pipes under this name in the town of La Seu d'Urgell, in the province of Lleida, Catalonia. The records give no detail on the master's working methods.

• Cordoban — A name produced in Spain for the firm Oppenheimer Pipe, intended to appear in its own GBD catalogs. It is distinguished by a distinctive sandblast texture and generally carries special stampings. Though long assumed to be GBD's second-tier pipes, this is not correct: the pipes were not made by GBD, and their range of shapes does not match GBD's shapes. Cordoban pipes appear in many GBD catalogs from the 1960s and 1970s.

• Cristino Crespo Peregrino — The name of a Spanish craftsman working in the village of El Gasco, in Nuñomoral, Cáceres — that is, in the interior of Extremadura. He makes rustic-textured pipes from the region's volcanic stone as well as from briar, walnut, and olive wood; his pipes are worked with decorative motifs.

• El Picú — The name given to pipes produced by elderly Extremaduran craftsmen in the Las Hurdes region of Cáceres. These pipes are more ornamental and ethnographic objects than items for everyday use, with a schematic, geometric visual language. Besides olive wood, briar, and walnut, they also use a mineral called ringwoodite, formed when meteorite material fuses with local rock.

• Emilio Navarro — A brand bearing the name of the Spanish craftsman who directed the firm Sucesores de Emilio Navarro. The firm's best-crafted pipes are stamped with both the Emilio Navarro name and the firm's original trademark, Bruken. The same firm also produces the names ENA and New Bond.

• Everest — A Spanish brand established in 1933, produced by Pipas Nubió. Records indicate that original production ceased at some point, and the name was more recently revived as Ibérica de Pipas's second brand.

• García — Named after F. Jesús García, a Spanish craftsman working in Seville. García makes his pipes mostly for friends and partly on commission, and is a member of the Andalusian pipe club.

• Ibérica de Pipas — A Spanish firm that, by its own account, was founded in 1919; besides pipe making it also produces wooden gift items and household goods. It states that it takes on custom work to the customer's own design. Both the Anfield series and the Everest name, revived as a second brand, belong to this firm.

• Majorca — A name seen on Spanish-made pipes. No further information is on record; only the brand name is documented.

• Nubió — Pipas Nubió is regarded as the first Spanish firm to combine pipe turning and finishing under one roof. Joseph Nubió settled in Vic, near Barcelona, after buying pipe-making machinery from Saint-Claude, and founded the firm the same year. In more recent times the business has been headed by Jordi Nubió. Everest, established in 1933, is also a product of this firm.

• Pipas Sigmund — A brand born when Segimon Baulenas began working on his own account in 2001. Baulenas joined the Salvatella pipe factory in the Girona region — where his father also worked — in 1973, and learned the craft there. He makes his pipes entirely by hand from high-grade Spanish briar, drying the brezo logs he obtains from the cutting mill naturally under his own supervision for more than two years. Baulenas also produces pre-drilled pipe blanks and other objects in briar, and carries out pipe repairs.

• Salas-Zazo — The joint brand of two turners working in Madrid, Ramón Salas and Ricardo Zazo. The pair set up their small workshop on Costanilla de los Desamparados in 1967; while their work was chiefly pipe repair, they also made pipes for tobacconists and on special commission. The workshop closed in December 2001, Ramón retired, and Ricardo — the principal master, known as "Maestro Zazo" — moved his tools to Arturo del Pozo's shop. There he oversaw the training of younger makers and continued repair work along with a small amount of pipe making. Ricardo Zazo died on 22 November 2002. The brand's finest work is found in the series bearing the Maestro Zazo signature.

• Salvatella — Founded in 1883 by Enric Moulines Giralt in Catalonia, long the center of both briar processing and pipe making. Giralt, trained alongside French pipe masters, set up his own business and devoted his early years chiefly to processing briar; the firm moved into pipe production only once Giralt's nephew took over management. At its most productive the factory made up to a hundred fifty thousand pipes a year and sold to many countries around the world, before closing in 2001. Among the carvers trained at the firm is Segimon Baulenas, who joined in 1973 and later made his own pipes under the name Pipas Sigmund.

• Santané — The brand of Josep Santané i Ribas, born in Tossa de Mar, in the province of Girona, Catalonia; he is counted among the few names still carrying on handmade pipe production in the country. His interest in woodworking comes from his grandfather Dionís, whom he watched for hours as a child building miniature boats. He uses regional briar and puts ten to twenty hours of work into each pipe; designs often start from the customer's own suggestion. He makes only one-off pipes; these are few in number, signed, and each comes with its own certificate.

• Taioli — Although Siro Taioli is sometimes described as a pipe maker or designer, records indicate his actual business was distributing Pipa Croci pipes, made by Paolo and Gianni Croci in Mantua, within Spain; the pipes stamped with his own name are therefore private-label products. His most notable work is a nine-pipe series dedicated to the nine founders of the Knights Templar. These pipes are presented in a velvet-lined wooden case, and each carries a gold band bearing the order's cross at the end of the shank.