Moritz (Jürgen Moritz)

Moritz is the name given to the pipes German master Jürgen Moritz produces single-handedly at his bench in Mönchengladbach. There is no factory here, but a small workshop where every stage, from selecting the block to the final polish, is gathered in the same person. Moritz first came to the pipe as a collector, moving into production only years later; according to records, his actual profession is social pedagogy, and pipe making ran alongside this work for a long time.

Formal Approach

The workshop's center of gravity is freehand pipes: the block's grain determines the shape, and the master follows the path the grain shows. When he turns to classic families, he is known to settle most often on the billiard and its variants such as the brandy and pot. Freehand means working according to each block's own grain pattern rather than a set mold; in this method, no two pipes are alike. Nor is there a pursuit of uniformity in size: the same hand produces both large, voluminous bowls and quite slender, light pieces.

Stems are drawn from ebonite; archival records state that cumberland is also used. The properties and care of these materials are discussed in the stem materials article. Precious woods, bamboo shanks, horn, boxwood, and bone are used at the transitions between shank and bowl. Alongside a smooth polish, sandblasting and staining are also applied as surface treatments. Each pipe carries a small mark on the underside of the shank; archival records give the form of the mark as "J. Moritz — handmade."