Morgan Pipes

Morgan Pipes is an American pipe brand founded by Chris Morgan in 2006, based in Los Gatos, California. The brand runs on two tracks: a handmade top line the founder finishes piece by piece at his own bench, and series lines produced under contract in Italy. This two-track way of working is a model with frequent examples in the American handmade pipe scene of the 2010s.

Founding and the Handmade Line

Morgan left his marine biology studies unfinished and turned to pipe making in 2006. He made his first pipe by shaping a pre-drilled bowl from a ready hobby kit, and sold this piece to a friend. In the following years he progressed largely through his own trial and error, without formal training under a master. The field he entered was the upper-tier artisan pipe market, active through the 2000s; these pieces, finished entirely by hand from start to finish, were long known under the name Handmade, and appear in the maker's current catalog under the heading Signature.

Briar Cigar and Its Patent

The search for a cigar-sized bowl that could be carried in a pocket yet smoked like a traditional pipe began as a side project in 2011. The key to the solution is an expansion chamber opened inside the stem's tenon: before reaching the mouth, the smoke expands and cools here, releasing its moisture. The mechanism is an inverted adaptation of the double-chambered calabash pipe; the patent text likewise describes the design as having a "reverse calabash chamber." The application, filed under the name Christopher D. Morgan, has a priority date of June 4, 2011; the patent was granted in the United States on December 26, 2017, under number 9,848,638. Commercial production began in 2013. The first batches came from Morgan's own bench; as demand grew, manufacturing moved to Italy. According to records, the work was first undertaken by Tommaso Ascorti, and production later moved to the site of the former Rossi facility in northern Italy.

Series Lines

• Blackjack (2014): Morgan's first series line, designed by him and produced in Italy. All-black finish; aluminum band on the shank, black acrylic stem.

• Bones (2015): An economy line. Surface flaws in the briar are not filled with putty as is customary in cheap pipes; they are left as they are. Early batches made use of old bowl stock that had been sitting in Italy for a long time. Pieces made from strawberry tree wood (Arbutus unedo) are set apart under the name Arbutus.

• One: A short pipe with no separate stem, carved from a single piece of briar. It grew out of blocks too small for pipes of conventional dimensions; there is no joint between shank and stem.

• Workshop (2022): A line run jointly with Montana-based maker Sean Reum. Pieces are hand-worked in two workshops; they are generally finished with a sandblasted surface and a Lucite stem.

Work Outside Pipe Making

In 2019 Morgan joined the series The Underground Railroad, set in early-1800s America, as a consultant and prop maker, producing period pipes used on screen. The series aired in 2021. He also has blending partnerships in pipe tobacco; the blend known as Bayou Buck, run with Sutliff Tobacco, is one of these.