Rinaldo

Rinaldo is a small-scale pipe workshop founded by brothers Elio and Guido Rinaldo in the Adriatic coastal city of Pesaro, Italy. Production under the brand's name began in 1987; the brothers' introduction to briar, however, goes back much further, to 1974, when they were still young. Rinaldo occupies a distinct place within the Italian workshop tradition, both for its fidelity to classic shapes and for its habit of presenting those shapes with rough, hand-worked surfaces.

Founding of the Workshop

According to records, the brothers are of Sicilian origin and moved north to settle in Pesaro at a young age. The same records indicate that they learned the craft at the bench of Mastro de Paja, one of the most influential Italian workshops of the period; some of the masters who passed through that same workshop later founded their own brands, such as Ser Jacopo. After a thirteen-year period of apprenticeship and journeyman work, the Rinaldo brothers began producing under their own name.

The workshop's most distinctive feature is that its scale is deliberately kept small. Annual production runs to roughly fifteen hundred pipes, and every one of them comes from the hands of the two brothers; the brand employs no in-house carving staff. Thanks to Guido's background in jewelry-making, silver ferrules and ornaments are also prepared in-house without being outsourced.

Finishes, Lines, and Grading

Rinaldo names its products by three main surface finishes: roughened (rustic) surfaces are called Lithos, sandblasted surfaces Sahara, and smooth polished surfaces Triade. This naming has become established because it lets a pipe's appearance be described in a single word within the community. For more detail on surface treatments, see the entry on rustication.

A second distinction alongside the finish concerns ornamentation: the Briar Line, consisting of briar alone; the Silver Line, with silver trim; and the Gold Line, with gold trim. There is also, alongside the standard bowl size, a notably large-bowled size called Titania.

Quality grading is based on repetition of the letter Y. The lowest tier is marked with a single Y; as the number of letters increases, so does the cleanliness and perfection of the grain, up to a maximum of four Y's. Above these sits the Fiammata grade, reserved for bodies with straight grain. A stamp on a pipe, for example "Titania Lithos YY," thus conveys the size, the finish, and the grade in a single line.

Material and Style

The workshop states that it selects briar blocks from the Mediterranean basin with an eye to tight grain and even structure; for the mouthpieces, acrylic is preferred for its resistance to wear and its ability to hold its shape over long use. The shape repertoire relies mainly on classic Italian and English molds, but the deep grooves and silver bands on the surfaces give this classic skeleton a rawer, more earthy look. According to records, the workshop's main markets outside Italy have been Germany and the United States.