Jud

Jud is the pipe signature carrying the name of Daniel Jud, a physician working in the town of Erlen, in the canton of Thurgau in northeastern Switzerland. Born in 1958, Jud's actual profession is psychiatry and psychotherapy; pipemaking has remained a side pursuit for him from the start. That said, his interest in machinery and metalwork has turned his workshop into a well-equipped precision-machining space; sources indicate he regularly spends an hour or two there each day.

The Path to Mastery

When Jud began smoking a pipe at sixteen, his first pipes were of the Italian-made Lorenzo brand. During his years as a medical student in Basel he became acquainted with the work of German and Danish masters; Karlheinz Joura and Knudsen are among the makers named as acquaintances from this period. When he mentioned the idea of carving a pipe with his own hands to his tobacconist, he was directed to Hans "Former" Nielsen, who was making Bentley pipes at the time in Kleinlützel in the Swiss Jura. Nielsen both gave him guidance on making and supplied his first briar blocks.

Jud, who began regular production in 1990, later visited Jacques Craen, owner of the Genod workshop in Saint-Claude, several times; for a long time he obtained the bulk of his block supply from there. Still, since he built the main body of his technical knowledge through his own experimentation, he is considered a largely self-taught maker.