pipemakersforum.com

That is a cool article... Thanks for posting

Interesting!

I just recently watched the documentary on American art forger Mark Landis. Fascinating. I especially find it fascinating that someone with such amazing skill and talent would spend it making forgeries. It speaks volumes of the art culture and business really. I think there are a lot of parallels in the pipe world.

Didn't Landis get his own gallery showing in one of the museums? I remember reading about it somewhere. I suppose that there is some sort of "Robin Hood" idea that grabs people's attention with the successful forgers. Greenhalgh and Landis definately have their differences as far as selling and donating their work, but to fool the experts is quite remarkable.

I often see some of the pipe makers doing there best to copy less tradition shapes (minus the original makers stamp) over here. One of the guys here already copied Li zhesong's sideways reverse calabash bugle pipe. Another guy is working on (I don't know who's) a pipe that was blasted to look like a leather sleeve with the zipper carved on the pipe.

I am often impressed by some of their copies too because they whip them out quickly. One of the guys only has a hand drill, Dremel, rasp, and sandpaper. Sometimes he makes like 5 to 6 pipes a week.

There are othrr guys though that copy less impressive pipes. I often see them making those little Big Ben nosewarmers (if you have one and like it ,that's cool. I personally am not crazy about the shape).