S. Bang

S. Bang was a Danish pipe workshop opened in Copenhagen in 1968 and closed in 2019. The brand takes its name from its founder, Svend Bang, but the reputation the workshop earned belongs to Per Hansen and Ulf Noltensmeier, who shared the same bench for nearly half a century.

By choosing to make only a small number of pipes each year and giving each one the time it needed, S. Bang became one of the handful of workshops regarded as standing at the very top of the Danish school tradition.

From Tobacco Counter to Pipe Bench

Svend Bang's trade was not carving but tobacco retailing. During his years at the venerable Copenhagen tobacconist W. Ø. Larsen, he built up blending knowledge and took on responsibility for setting up a pipe workshop attached to the shop. This experience gave him a ready-made layout when he opened his own shop in 1968: a sales area at the front, a workroom at the back. At first the workroom handled only repairs, yet what Bang wanted was pipes bearing his own name. To that end he hired one master after another; because most left within a short time, the staff never quite settled. Among the names recorded are Peter Rafn and Ivan Holst Nielsen.