I know that I have already written far too much about the Chicago Pipe Show, but that is mostly because it is such a massive gathering that it would take me until the next show to fully explicate the totality of the event. One thing is without question about the show, as I am sure is true about almost all other pipe events: one of the best parts is getting the chance to meet new and incredible people there.

During the banquet on the Friday evening of the show, Lauren, Dustin, and I were joined by five men from Sweden. Two of the men were Martin and Anders of Vollmer & Nilsson, while two others were high end collectors. The fifth man, and the youngest, was named Jonas. He was extremely affable from the moment we met him, leaning across the table to shake hands, tell a joke, and let out a big laugh. From that moment on, we spent a great deal of time with Jonas Rosengren.

I had actually seen him for a couple of moments earlier that Friday at the show’s Smoke and Swap event. I was walking up and down the aisles, snapping as many photos as possible for the several stories that I was to be writing about the show. When I passed Jonas’s small table, I had to stop and look at the few pipes that he had available. Two of them were perfectly spherical, not counting the stem, of course, and refused to let my gaze go anywhere else. I then recalled seeing Jonas the night before, though I had no idea who he was at the time. I saw him smoking one of those spherical pipes and showing it to another pipe maker, who looked at it with a combination of skepticism, awe, and amazement. Now that I had a chance to look closer at these pipes, I understood why.

These pipes are Jonas’s take on the classic calabash. The top part pops out, revealing an expansion chamber inside. Jonas had another calabash design on his table that was in the shape of a volcano, which sold very quickly. The customer let him take a couple of puffs from it once it was bought, as Jonas had never gotten the chance to try it out before. He then leaned over to me and whispered, “This shape smokes even cooler than the ball calabash. I didn’t think that was possible.”

These ball calabashes have been a smash hit, to say the least. Within 72 hours of going live on Quality Briar, all of Jonas’s pipes were sold out and he already had at least two threads about him on pipe forums. I must admit, I couldn’t resist getting one of my own after eyeballing it for the whole weekend at the Chicago Show.

I asked Jonas where he got the idea for this take on the calabash: “From my head, I guess?” Jonas is never one to say anything without a joke and a smile. “I know that some makers have a shape that is their own, like Geiger’s logo pipe, and I wanted something that I haven’t seen before and made the spherical pipe. Then I realized that some similar been made before but not as a calabash so I tried that and I think that I succeed with the challenge.” Read more