The Searock series was born with Carlo Scotti’s creation of the Castello brand, and some of the rugged shapes that it adorned must have seemed quite alien to the American public when the line was introduced in the US by Wally Frank in the 50’s. Let’s face it, when you have been weaned on traditional English shapes (as well as virtually no variation within a given shape group) a great deal of mind set had to be changed in order to garner wide acceptance. Almost six decades later and untold numbers of Searocks nestling comfortably within American collections, clearly we Yanks can recognize a great thing when we see it.

Muscular and undeniably masculine in spirit, while a bit ‘short in stature’ in length, to my mind Castello’s shape 55 has always been the ‘Franco Columbo’ of the pipe world, as well as a perennial favorite of Castello collectors around the globe. With a condition that approaches ‘pristine’, this is a heck of a lot of fine pipe for $225 bananas. (Note: please don’t actually send us bananas for this pipe, unless cleared by Nick in advance).

Bear Graves