Alexander Pipes

Alexander Pipes is regarded as the best-known name in Greek pipe manufacturing. Founder Alexandros Zavvos was born in Molos near Lamia, trained in radio electronics, and entered trade in 1962. What he built is less an ordinary workshop than a production chain that gathers every stage, from raw briar block to finished pipe, under one roof.

Founding and Vertical Production

By Zavvos's own account, his turn toward pipe making followed a meeting with a briar-working craftsman in Italy; unable to find a school to teach him the craft, he learned it by trial. He reports moving to commercial briar-blank production in 1964, making his first pipe in 1965, and by 1967 setting up a vertically integrated production system that took root cut from Greek forests all the way to the consumer's finished pipe. In the same period, a facility devoted to ebony mouthpiece production was set up in Lamia together with his brother. This arrangement sets the company apart from the common factory model, in which mouthpiece materials and stummel work are handled by separate suppliers.