special range : Briar Apples "pommes en racine de bruyère"

With no doubt, briar is a noble material. Smokers of pipe are well aware of not only its beauty but also its smooth touch contrasting with the heavy density : It is recognisable with one's eyes closed.

Briar apples are made from the roots of a bush, the White Tree Heath, Erica Arborea. (La grande Bruyère Arborescente). This plant, when growing in Mediterranean countries, is sufficiently mature to produce roots able to be used by pipemakers or other luxury crafting. We have two types of briar, according to the origin of briar roots and we are selling two ranges of briar apples.

Pipemakers import roots or boiled blanks of briar wood from Mediterranean countries. That wood is costly, because the hard work to extract roots and to saw blanks for future crafting. At this stage, at least 50 % of the wood is rejected. Then the blanks are boiled in big coopper pots and dried in shade for many months, according to the size of blanks. Below, two origins of briar are proposed

Opposite, view of two sides of a sample of briar apples from a special range of briar apples for briar connoisseurs. Imagine to take that fruit, as heavy and polish as the marble but warm like wood   diameter circa 78 mm - 3,1" (real size in 800x600 screen definition). After mainy researches, we have selected a briar producer, an Algerian familly devoted to briar roots extraction from rich forests of Kabilia   Price : 25 us$ per unit (25Euros) add $8 for sending (free of taxes above $100 ) Contact: andre.provence@arts-provence.com fax : (33)492725928

Our best briar apples are real sculptures The highest rank of our briar apples are made from our own root harvesting in the Provence hills (opposite sample). The roots are much smaller than in Kabilia, but there is other advantages : roots are dried by sun and often partially burn by fires of hills. New natural colours, pink red are produced and selected. The higher price of that range can be explained for several reasons : first, the time of preparing the matter, separating the good part of the matter from disparate parts of roots; then, the difficulty of supplying beautiful samples, managed to avoid deformations; and mainly, the periodical breaking of the saws or tools by the little stones included in the roots. Special orders :Because a very limited production, only one apple of that rank is supplied for each five other briar apples, and for the same above prices(25$). On request, retail supply is possible at 40 us$ each. Add $8 for sending (free sending above $90 ) Contact : andre.provence@arts-provence.com

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beauty of briar, visit :Cornelius pipe-maker or , in Japan pipe-do PipeSmoke Ring Provided by: Spiderlinks.Org PREVIOUS NEXT RANDOM SITE-LIST Ringmaster: Jack Tompkins Site Owner: Marcel André Ring Home: http://www.jack-tompkins.com/Pipes Join: PipeSmoke Ring

october 16 / 2002