David Epstein offered this unsmoked featherROCK on eBay and mentioned he had come by it when he had done some jobbing for Venturi in the 70's. Of course, I wrote him before the auction ended to ask about his experiences and, from the correspondence, it developed that he had three more pipes, 2 Venturi and 1 the pipe that were his samples. When I won the auction, we made a deal for this one and the other three - all un-smoked and factory fresh. The two Venturis will join the collection and their predecessors will go to the Pipes for Sale page. the pipe is a true All-American which I did not have in the Billiard shape, so it will also join the collection.
When I got a featherROCK the pipe box with literature, I was able to put the shape names to all of these pipes. Sadly, the pipe in that box was broken or sawed off at the heel of the bowl so I gave it to Rick Osborn and put this pipe in that box. Certainly poor curatorial practice, but the collection looks better this way.