In recent years, Teddy has stopped making anything but the finest straight grains (and, at my earlier recommendation and encouragement) spectacular sandblasts, albeit enhanced with a touch of the Dremel tool where nature was found wanting. The vast majority of these are pre-sold to an exceedingly wealthy group of Russian oligarchs. One may find the ethics a bit troubling. But Teddy, like Cuba Gooding in "Jerry Maguire," practices the simple ethic of "Show Me the Money!" The result is that most collectors are left in the lurch apart from the uber rich.
The good news, however, is that Teddy has left a legacy of far more reasonably priced pipes from the time before he became the Lady Gaga of the pipe making firmanent--the pipes he made while working for Larsen in the late '70's and early '80's. For all that he is an authentic genius, he also has has signature design elements that allow us to differentiate the pipes he made in the period from those of the other great carvers also in Larsen's occasional employ, including Jess, Poul Ilsted, Tonni Nielsen, Peter Hedegaard, et. al.
This is one such. It is, in essence, a bent horn with a tall, canted Dublin bowl with characteristic curved top, and a graceful, assymetrically carved shank with four curved facets. This shank converges to an unusual variation on his typical German vulcanite saddle bit, one whose boss initially follows the curves of the shank, before flaring out to a thin ornamental lip, which drops down to form a kind of assymetrical tear-drop shape on the underside. I see this as a Teddy gesture that signals that he knows that the grain of the pipe isn't all that it might be, but that Teddy the artist is still very much present and accounted for. And it certainly adds visual interest and dynamism to the shape. One sees the same kind of inside jokes in Per Hansen's work at S. Bang, as I have pointed out from time to time, although Per's are rather more subtle.
As usual, the pipe is extremely well balanced and impeccably executed. And because the grain of the Corsican briar isn't altogether symmetrical, Ole Larsen (a bit of pirate himself) graded it (and paid for it) as a "Select" rather than one of the straight grain series.
So here is an opportunity to own a pipe from one of the best carvers alive. It's in first rate condition in all regards, appearing much as it must have done when first put on display in the famous Larsen store on Copenhagen's somewhat precious version of the shopping mall, the famous "Walking Street." I have priced it at what I consider a fair measure of its value, rather than in relation to current pricing, in which the numerator of the price-to-value ratio so far exceeds the denominator.