Il Ceppo

Il Ceppo is a small-scale handmade pipe workshop that has operated since the late 1970s in the Adriatic coastal city of Pesaro, Italy. The name means "the stump" or "the block" in Italian, referring to the raw material at the brand's starting point, the briar block. The workshop is counted, alongside Mastro de Paja and Ser Jacopo, within the Pesaro circle, one of the two major centers of Italian pipe making.

Founding and Early Years

The brand was founded by Giorgio Imperatori, an architect with a passion for pipes. Sources do not agree on the founding year: some records give 1977, others 1978; some texts profiling the brand push the workshop's core back as far as the early 1970s. What is agreed on is that the first pipes reached the market in the late 1970s.

Collectors examine Il Ceppo by dividing it into two periods. On pipes from the first period, which ran until roughly 1996, the "Il Ceppo" stamp is struck on the shank in a slightly arched form. Alongside the stamp sit a letter between A and H, a four- or five-digit number, and a group number enclosed in a triangle.