Holger Frickert

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Holger Frickert, born 1949, first made aquaintance with pipe smoking in the mid-sixties during his frequent holiday stays in Denmark, and very soon he started his creative work on pipes by reshaping the ones he had purchased changing their appearance to his own taste. Leaving school in 1968 he took up studies to become a dentist. After some terms of study he met Mr. Behrens, owner of the small mail order company Dan Pipe, supplying various handmade pipes they imported from Denmark, among them famous names such as Former or Emil Chonowitsch. This contact would soon be causing a change in Holger Frickert's life, when in 1978 he joined the Dan Pipe. His main task beside managing the sales in both retail shop and mail order division was to plan and to publish their annual pipe and tobacco catalogue including such creative jobs as arranging the picture displays, layouts and writing the catalogue text. Besides he still found time to work on pipes, first doing various repair jobs and finally, having bought some useful machinery, creating his own pipe shapes. Some „lessons" in the pipe workshops of artists like Hans Jonny Nielsen, Poul Hansen and Emil Chonowitsch helped him to soon become fit in these skills. His pipe creations were first sold under the name „Handcut by Holger" in the Dan Pipe retail shop only, and as there was a very positive response from the customers, Dan Pipe decided to present his pipes in their 1984 catalogue. Since that time pipes „Handcut by Holger" have found more and more friends among distinctive pipe smokers in Germany and, in the meantime, also worldwide. Holger Frickert is most fond of „classic" shapes following the „english style", but he also likes the „danish way" of modernizing theses shapes into contemporary designs. He take great care in creating well-balanced shapes, of course still trying to achieve a good balance of shape and grain. But still he takes great care in the aspects of functional parametres such as width of the tobacco hole, thickness of the wood both of bowl and stem, free draught and comfortable bits of the mouthpiece. For, what good is a pipe with the most excellent grain and perfect shape if the simplest of technical aspects have been neglected in favour of mere beauty. In the meantime Holger Frickert has created a large number of interesting shapes, and many of them have also made their way into other producer's ranges such as Lorenzetti, Bartoli, Ser Jacopo and even Stanwell of Denmark. Through all those years briar pipes „Handcut by Holger" have been approved by many „real" pipe smokers who highly appreciate both excellent smoking qualities and harmonious designs.[1]

Holger Frickert was a pipe designer for Dan Pipe and its joint owner. Holger was born in 1949 and has worked in the field since 1977. His work has been influenced by Poul Ilsted, Former (Hans Jonny Nielsen), and Emil Chonowitsch. He created one of the 2002 pipes for the Brebbia Grandi Designers della Pipa series. He makes variants on classic shape, with vulvanite and acrylic stems. Stamp: Handcut by Holger. Symbol: HP.[2]

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References

  1. courtesy http://members.mailaka.net/gazette/pipefolk.htm
  2. From Pipes, Artisans and Trademarks, by José Manuel Lopes