Directory of Japanese Pipe Brands

The Directory of Japanese Pipe Brands is a collective list of workshops and brand names that have made pipes in Japan. Production in the country draws on two distinct veins: on one side, the centuries-old craft tradition of the traditional Japanese pipe made of metal and bamboo; on the other, one-person benches that, in the second half of the twentieth century, discovered the Scandinavian shape idiom and developed their own style working in briar. The entries below briefly summarize the documented basic facts about each brand; those with a standalone article on the site are linked.

Brands

• Goisagi Pipes — Records mention only the brand name; no documented detail exists about the workshop, maker, or production.

• Hachiro — Seiji Hachiro grew up among pipes as the son of a Japanese pipe dealer and made his first pieces at age fourteen. At fifteen he displayed his work at his father's stand at the 2005 Chicago show, catching the attention of noted makers such as Teddy Knudsen and Edward Andrew Jurkiewicz of the E. Andrew Briars workshop. He continued his training over the following summer holidays at the sides of makers such as Tonni Nielsen and Lee von Erck in the United States, and later began working in his own workshop in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

• Hasegawa — Toyohei Hasegawa is a maker of the traditional Japanese pipe, the kiseru. He started out in Tsubame, one of the main production centers for this pipe, apprenticing to master Zengoro Hattori at age thirteen. He went out on his own in 1926, at just eighteen; in periods of high demand he produced as many as three hundred tin and copper kiseru a month. In the final stretch of his career, in the 1990s, he made pieces inlaid with gold and silver; after winning numerous awards, he was named among Tsubame's living cultural treasures.

• Hattori — Zengoro Hattori was one of the respected kiseru makers of the twentieth century. In his workshop in Tsubame he trained many craftsmen, including Toyohei Hasegawa.

• Higuchi — Born in Tokyo in 1930, Junichiro Higuchi moved to the bench in 1974 and returned that same year with first prize from a handmade pipe competition he entered. His annual output is around fifty pieces. His approach to shape sits close to the Danish school; besides briar he also works in ivory, horn, and bamboo.

• HiRo — HiRo-branded pipes are made by Yorozutoshi Hiroyuki, born in 1958. The maker works in Hokkaido.

• Ichi — Ichi Kitahara founded his bench in 2004, but has a long artistic background before that date. He trained in fresco painting in the Baroque style, and spent several months in South Dakota studying Native American silversmithing. Throughout the 1990s he made custom jewelry and ornamental pieces on commission, selling them through galleries in Tokyo. He is a student of Hiroyuki Tokutomi and makes pipes on a part-time basis.

• Komatsu — Having worked as a hairdresser for twenty years before moving to the bench, Komatsu draws a parallel between hair cutting and pipe making as crafts, saying balance is the decisive criterion in both. He has also worked on how smoke exits the stem, using an air-channel shape of his own design at the stem's end for even smoke dispersal.

• Maruyama — Hajime Maruyama is a young pipe carver not widely known outside Japan. No further detail is available on his style or production volume.

• Miyasaka — Pipes are known to have been made under this name; no record exists of the maker or workshop.

• Namiki — Namiki Manufacturing Co. Ltd. worked with Dunhill on lacquer (urushi) coated pipe production. The company has a technique of its own; pipe bowls are mostly decorated with various motifs and figures drawn from nature imagery.

• Roland — The name Roland has been used by several independent firms. A known example bearing this name in Japan was likely made by Fukashiro Tsutomu, who is said to have signed some of his more modest pieces with this brand. The same pipe also bears the stamp of Kikusui, one of Tokyo Ginza's longstanding tobacconists — a store-brand arrangement of the kind common at shops in the West too.

• Tokutomi, Yuki — Yuki Tokutomi is the daughter of Hiroyuki Tokutomi, a leading figure in Japanese pipe making, and has been making pipes since mid-2005. She grew up at her father's bench, learning the material and the process by helping him in the workshop. Her style reflects her father's while retaining its own character; her cited shape influences include Danish maker Gert Holbek and her father's own teacher, Sixten Ivarsson. She made her debut at the CPCC show in 2007.

• Yanagihara — Shigeyoshi Yanagihara is a maker whose career at the bench spans thirty years. After retiring from his career, he continued production as a pastime, making one to three pipes a year. He lives in Tokyo.

• Zousan — The maker's real name is unknown; the nickname "Zousan" can be translated into English as "Mr. Elephant." Said to have been making pipes since the early 1990s, he is among the Japanese makers little known in America and Europe.