Jan Harry Seiffert

Jan Harry Seiffert (1965–2019) was a German pipe maker who came from a Kassel-based family in tobacco importing and pipe wholesaling and, over a short but influential career at the bench, produced no more than about a hundred pipes a year. The family firm Heinrich Seiffert & Sohn was a name long recognized in Germany's pipe trade, so the commercial side of the craft was already familiar to Seiffert before he ever sat down at a lathe.

Family Circle and First Pipe

His father's circle as a tobacco importer also shaped the son's education. (The father's name appears in sources both as Detlef and Detlev.) One childhood holiday was spent in Denmark, at the side of Jens Tao Nielsen, then head of the Svendborg Piber workshop. As the story goes, he carved his first pipe on that holiday from a pre-drilled bowl blank he was given. Another detail showing the family's place in this world: his godfather was Kapp, a partner in the Peterson house — the source of his middle name, Harry.

During his school years, music entered as a second pursuit. Playing bass guitar above all, along with keyboard and percussion, Seiffert took to the stage from the age of sixteen and remained a well-known funk-jazz musician around Kassel throughout his life. His choice of a brand emblem combining a pipe with a treble clef is a trace of this second life.