I first saw this intriguing shape as rendered by Stanwell. I was sure it had to be a Sixten shape, and last year at the Chicago Show, Lars confirmed this. But this year, I ran into a student from the pipe making school that I had sponsored at Mimmo's workshop in Italy, where Lars Ivarsson was the instructor. That student had on his table for sale this very shape, but made by Sixten himself. So I found Lars wandering about the show floor, and asked him about it once again. He said that in his father's workshop, they had always called it the "Potato Sack" pipe, for obvous reasons. Appparently his father had made it as an unusual member of the "egg" series, but that it was based upon a shape that his older brother had made, a brother who was not especially good with the machinery, and it had apparently caught Sixten's fatherly eye.
Lars went on to say that he (Lars) didn't especially like the shape, and had made various suggestions to his father to improve the lines, suggestions which his father apparently declined to follow. I agreed, saying that I didn't "like" it in the conventional sense of the term, but found it most interesting, and thought that it showed his father's sly sense of humor. Lars nodded, but not with great conviction.
However, it appears that Lars and I are very much in the minority, as Sixten apparently made some 40 of this shape; and Stanwell used the shape as a model, and produced a number of pipes based upon it. Lars had said that there were two variations, one with a rather square-jowled profile as viewed from the front, and one with a more rounded profile. You will see that there are examples of both types offered below. Moreover, the Sixten pipe itself has unusual markings, which include the word "Poul's," indicating that it was made especially for an individual by this name. One can only presume that Poul liked it very much as well, whoever he may have been.
