Purdy (Will Purdy)

Purdy is the brand under which American pipe maker Will Purdy signs his pipes. Born, by the records, in 1958, Purdy works at a small bench he set up in the basement of his home in Louisville, in Boulder County, Colorado. His workshop is a one-man operation, and because his annual output is kept low, his signature is thought of less as a widely distributed brand than as a name that circulates within collector circles.

Founding of the Bench

Purdy's acquaintance with the pipe goes back to his youth, to a family circle of pipe smokers; but he only took up making pipes in the very early 2000s. His first attempts, in 2001, involved kits assembled from ready-made parts; the following year he acquired two lathes along with a stock of briar and ebonite rod, moving on to shaping from the block. It is known that he developed his skill not through workshop apprenticeship but through a daily, uninterrupted routine of practice; it is also recorded that he drew on the assessments of a number of collectors along the way.

The bench's opening to the wider world came at the Los Angeles and Chicago pipe shows in early 2004, where he brought his pieces. Smooth-finished pipes entered circulation that same year, while sandblast-finished examples are said to have been announced for 2007, with later-dated sandblasted pieces also known. This trajectory runs in the same direction as the multiplication of self-taught small benches within the American handmade pipe scene of the same period.