Urup (Arne Urup)

Urup is a pipe signature bearing the name of Danish master Arne Urup, built almost entirely around meerschaum. The master is said to have begun working with this material in the early 1970s, with a block that came into his hands. Although he was active in the years when freehand briar was giving the country its name, he stayed outside the formal explorations associated with the Danish School, choosing instead to confine himself to meerschaum, amber, and silver, carrying forward Central Europe's old carving techniques. There is little room for machinery in the workshop; most of the work is done by hand.

Amber Mouthpieces

On Urup's pipes the mouthpiece is mostly genuine amber. The raw material used is stated to be Baltic amber sourced from Lithuania. The master's reason for choosing the cloudy variety known as "milk amber" over transparent amber is practical: this type is available in large, sturdy pieces, and unlike transparent amber, it does not, after a while, reveal the smoke channel visible from inside.

What makes amber a difficult material is its brittleness. The smoke channel cannot be drilled straight through from one end; as the drill nears the exit point, no body remains to hold the piece upright, and the amber cracks. For this reason drilling proceeds from both ends, advancing in steps of a few millimeters to meet in the middle; the master is said to use a flattened bicycle spoke for this task. A thread is cut at the end of the channel facing the shank, into which a Teflon fitting seated in the socket inside the shank is fitted. The fact that a single mouthpiece demands several hours of hand labor stems from these details. Maintenance, however, is simple: amber cannot tolerate chemical cleaners, so soap and water suffice.

The Lyre (Congress) Shape

The shape considered the master's signature is the Congress pipe, referred to as the "lyre" because of the curve of its mouthpiece. The name is traced to the congress held in Vienna in 1814-1815, which established Europe's post-war order; as the story goes, delegates arriving for the congress were each given a Vienna pipe because of the city's fame in meerschaum carving. The shape's criteria are strict: three amber rings sit between the mouthpiece and the body, and the fitting joining the two parts is made of bone with a cut screw thread. Records state that Urup learned both the carving of this shape and the making of its distinctive mouthpiece from Danish meerschaum master Henry Jørgensen, who was also known as a restorer. The pipe's length and curve require it to be held at the fingertips like a cigar, rather than cupped in the palm.

Bowl Inserts

Another product to come out of the workshop is block meerschaum inserts fitted into the bottom of the bowl. The insert raises the bowl base a few millimeters and leaves a closed cavity beneath, so the base is not directly exposed to the coal. There is a reason for this: because meerschaum colors fastest where it stays coolest and closest to the surface, in most pipes the shank is the first area to darken, while the bowl base lags behind. The same pieces also serve as a protective measure in briar pipes with a thin base. According to the manufacturer's promotional texts, Urup developed his own solution combining the insert with the fitting arrangement, and finished a portion of his pipes with silver rings he shaped by hand.