Geiger Pipes

Geiger Pipes is a two-person pipe workshop run jointly by Love Geiger and his wife Sara Mossberg in Skåne, at the southern tip of Sweden. Born when Geiger began working briar in 1997, the workshop turns out only a small number of pieces each year. That design and technique are not concentrated in a single master's hands sets the brand apart within contemporary artisan pipemaking.

The Road to Briar

Geiger's connection to pipes began in the mid-1990s. According to the account, his first material was not briar but soapstone; the few pieces he carved for himself and his friends never developed into a lasting path, since they overheated and cracked easily. Vulcanite stem rod from an acquaintance, together with a few blocks of briar, was enough to make him take the work seriously in 1997.

In those years, the main way to learn pipemaking was to ask those who already knew. Records indicate that Geiger carried on a years-long correspondence with American maker Trever Talbert, whom he met online, and drew on the guidance of his fellow Swede Bengt Carlson while adapting his lathe to pipe work. According to a 2003 visit report, the workshop was at that time set up inside an old circus wagon; today it operates in the Degeberga area of Skåne. Sara Mossberg, who trained in fine art, joined the workshop later, and the partnership settled in over the course of the 2000s; the two now work together at every stage of the process.