Learned (Sam Learned)

Learned is the name identifying the handmade pipes of pipe maker Sam Learned (1936-2015), who worked in York, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Learned took up the craft at fifty-nine, while running an established patent law practice. Over a production span approaching twenty years he became known for his horn shapes and his "Hunter" pipes, which set a crown of deer antler at the end of the shank.

Within the American handmade pipe tradition, he is counted as a small workshop with a distinctive style.

From Engineering to Patent Law

Sam Learned was born in Seattle on 17 September 1936; his family moved to Phoenix in 1946. In 1960 he earned a chemical engineering degree from New Mexico State University and joined the army as a lieutenant that same month; his introduction to pipes dates to these years. Leaving the army in 1964, he settled in York and worked as an engineer. Holding patents on several machine inventions of his own steered him toward law: in 1973 he earned a doctorate in law from the University of Baltimore, and after 1975 practiced patent law on his own. Pipe making continued alongside this demanding profession, carried on as a pursuit confined to certain days of the week at a workshop in his home's basement.