Peter Fischer

Peter Fischer is one of Switzerland's few independent pipe masters, working alone in a small workshop within the old-town fabric of Schaffhausen. His output is not series but piece by piece; his name is particularly associated with his calabash interpretation and a regional hunting pipe.

Production Line

Fischer's output falls into three groups. In his calabash interpretation, the main line of the traditional arrangement is kept, but transformed through shank work and applications in different materials; sources state that this design received model protection in Switzerland under the name "Fischer Calabash," though this has not been confirmed by an independent registration record. The second group is the Schaffhausen hunting pipe, shaped according to the wishes of a hunting circle: briar inlays over horn and deer antler are the distinguishing mark of this group. The third group consists of briar freehand pieces working from classic shape families; the maker says he never takes up the same shape a second time, so every piece remains unique.

He is said to be exacting about material choice, seeking not just that a block look good but that its smoking behavior also be good. According to the same account, his blocks come mainly from Greece and the Liguria coast area; setting aside one block from each batch to make a pipe for himself, as a way of testing the material, has over the years formed a personal stock of notable size. These details rest on a single source and have not been confirmed elsewhere.

Ornamentation and the Workshop's Surroundings

Mother-of-pearl, amber, bone, and precious-stone applications appear not only on the shank but at times on the bowl and mouthpiece as well; he is known to work with a jeweler for more elaborate ornamentation. His buyer base is mainly European, though he is said to have followers in America and the Far East as well. The workshop is not only a place of production: pipe maintenance and repair work is carried out from here, and, given the maker's fondness for fly fishing, it is also a haunt for fly-tying enthusiasts. Fischer is among the names representing the one-man-workshop wing of the global community of master pipe makers.

Path and Records

Fischer was born in 1949 in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany. Following an apprenticeship in trade, he turned to seafaring, working as a bookkeeper on cargo ships in his early twenties, and settled in Switzerland at the end of these years. His interest in the craft is said to have been sparked by a pipe-making demonstration he saw at an exhibition in Winterthur; sources disagree on who the demonstrating master was. The workshop's founding year is given in records as 1975; while this date cannot be independently confirmed, it is consistent with the phrase "more than thirty-five years" in a 2013 regional news item from Swiss public broadcaster SRF. Fischer did not rely on the pipe alone for a living for many years, working as a bartender at a well-known jazz and rock venue in the city; he explains this as a deliberate choice not to leave his production at the mercy of market expectations. The 2013 news item reports that he was considering closing the workshop at a relatively near date; no record has been found for what followed.