Ph. Vigen

Ph. Vigen is the signature name of Danish master Jes Phillip Vigen Gertsen. Within the Danish school, he is counted among the least-heard-of top-tier (high-grade) makers despite a bench career of nearly forty years. The reason is not that his craftsmanship was limited, but that most of what came off his hands went to sale under other brands' stamps. Born, according to records, in 1953, the master spent nearly his entire career in this kind of invisibility.

Apprenticeship and Early Years

He learned the trade within W.Ø. Larsen, one of Copenhagen's large workshops. His apprenticeship began in 1972, with his principal teacher being Former, the same workshop's chief designer. When the workshop closed at the end of the 1970s, Vigen had to look for a new bench. He worked briefly for S. Bang, which had taken him on to meet its growing orders, but according to accounts the two parted ways after about a year and a half.

The Pibe-Dan Workshop

His next stop was the workshop of Pibe-Dan, the Copenhagen shop founded in 1943 that brought together the pipes of Danish makers. Vigen's main job there was repair; in addition, he turned out around eight to ten new pipes a month. Under the shop's standard practice, these pipes were double-stamped: both the maker's name and the shop's name were struck. It is in these years that the Ph. Vigen signature was first used. The same workshop is known to have housed young makers of various periods, such as Tom Eltang and Preben Holm; Vigen stayed there until the shop closed in 1991.

Top-Tier Production for Bjarne

After Pibe-Dan closed, he tried working independently. The period was one in which demand for top-tier pipes was declining in many markets, and this venture was not long-lived. According to accounts, in 1993 he reached an agreement with Bjarne to produce the brand's top-tier line and carried on his work from his rural workshop in southern Denmark. Pipes from this line carried the "Bjarne Nielsen" stamp, had no brand logo on the mouthpiece, and were classified with a quality grading running from A to D. Other makers, such as Ole Bandholm and Tonni Nielsen, are known to have also worked on this same line; as a result, attributing a single Bjarne top-tier pipe to its maker is often not possible.

This arrangement ended with Bjarne Nielsen's death in 2008 and the closing of the business. Vigen did not return to pipe making after this date, nor did he move to set up a new brand under his own name. He is remembered as one of the last examples of the "workshop-to-workshop master" model that persisted for a generation in Denmark. What remains explains why his name is heard so little: the briar pipes carrying his own stamp are relatively few, and most of them date to the Pibe-Dan years; his mature-period craftsmanship, meanwhile, circulates under another brand's name.