Saul Salzhauer

Many thanks to Hank Saatchi for discovering an interesting New York Times article from FEB. 18, 1973 that prominently features Saul Salzhauer, as well as Jack H. Weinberger (JHW Pipes) and William Craig. The following is an excerpt from that article:

NEWARK—For Saul Salzhauer, one of three known men who turn out handmade pipes in New Jersey, he is a craftsman engaged in an art that is being strangled by the assembly line.

“There's no question about it, this is a dying art,” said Mr. Salzhauer in his workshop at Jelling's Cigars, Inc. Now 53 years old, he has fashioned pipes for the smoker for the last 22 years.

“First, let me say there are only three of us left in the state, to my knowledge, and all of us are more than 50 years old,” Mr. Salzhauer went on. “But that's not why this is a dying art.

“In the Depression years, my father was in the business and taught me how to make pipes. The pipemakers of old did the entire job. But by the Depression years, the craft started to die because everything was put on the assembly line in order to bring prices down.

“No one person did the entire job. For example, someone who did the sanding couldn't finish a pipe. Making machine pipes is like making a key; you can stamp out thousands of them.”

Mr. Salzhauer creates freeform pipes from Algerian and Greek briar and other woods. Since 1951, he has commuted to his job here from his home in Brooklyn.