Positives:   For starters, it's huge - It is literally quite a lot of pipe for the money.  It's the size of pipe that one can fill and smoke all evening.  The sandblast is pretty exceptional, in my opinion.  This is an example of a pipe that was chosen from the very start to make a striking sandblast - I searched among my plateau blocks for examples with really prominent visual age rings, compared hardness of wood, and test-blasted different specimens before settling on this piece, which was designed from the ground up to be a truly extraordinary blast.  The grain is really hard to beat, and the golden/brown staining nicely complements the handcut cumberland stem.  I've been working on improving my stems, especially in cases like this where there is a strong taper from thick stem to a thin bit.  Between the flatness and the thin profile, I'm quite pleased with it.  It has a lot of subtle touches that I like on my pipes, like the fact that the upward curve of the shank as it meets the bowl perfectly mirrors the underside curve of the front bowl bottom.  Also, the stem and shank lines flow smoothly in one long cigar shape, with no obvious and visible demarcation point where shank becomes stem.  These are the sort of subtle touches that I really enjoy seeing on pipes, especially classical and semi-classical shapes such as this.  I say "semi" because of that plateau rim.  I had originally planned to cut it off and make a flat top, but once I saw how neat the plateau looked in this stain, I had to leave it!  

Negatives:  Nada, I love it!  Strictly for large pipe enthusiasts, though.

 
Dimensions:

Bowl Type: 2.4 cm round-bottomed

Airhole Size: 5/32""

Total Weight incl Stem: 78.2 grams

Bowl Height: 6.5 cm(Bottom to lowest bowl edge)

Tobacco Chamber Depth: 5.5 cm

Length from Bowl Base to end of Bit: 15 cm