SUNALP

Denmark, 1980s

At first sight the pipe belongs to the “Danish Golden era” freehands among with Preben Holm, Karl Erik, Holtorp creatures. And the mpst probably, this first impression is correct – the nomenclature says “SANALP | HANDMADE \ DENMARK”. At the same time our investigations guided us to the US trademark “SUNALP” registered by Erdal Sunalp in Los Gatos, CA. And according to this application filled in 1978 the business was related to “smoking pipes, lighters, and cigar humidor cases”. Also you may find both quite expensive meerschaum block pipes bearing the SUNALP tm and a bit more affordable “SUNALP France” artifacts. Unfortunately, the trade mark is not active since 1990. It woud be hard to believe that this is just an coincidence. It seems we’ve found a quite luxury tobacconist who ordred products from diffrenet countries including such amazing Danish works of art!

The pipe markings are “SUNALP \ HANDMADE \ DENMARK”. The length is 13.5 cm (5.31″), bowl’s height is 5.2 cm (2.05″). External dimensions of the bowl are 5.1 cm (2.01″), internal diameter is 2.3 cm (0.9″). The depth is 4.0 cm (1.57″) and this pipe weights 74 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, no filter. The pipe was smoked perhaps just a few times, we still can identify some residue of the original bowl coating.