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Pipes and Proseč
Let's pass into history. We will go back from approximately 1920 up to today's "modern" days when big pipe producers take advantages of the latest technology, controlled by computers not people. Fortunately, even today there are real small producers, these are "the firms", where only one man manages all the work, a craftsman - creative person, who makes the pipes manually and who can imprint a unique character in the pipe. This man brings his own qualities, his individuality to the work and it often results in pipes with an original shape, in a craftsman manner worked and these are the pipes having a spirit. It is pleasure both to smoke and to hold them in your hands. It is pleasure to rest your eye on them. They please the heart of every man, not only a smoker, with its elegance.
There was no need of rich machine equipment at the beginning of pipe production in Proseč – makers only needed a handsaw, a sharp knife made of good steel similar to shoemaker's cutter, a rasp, wood files and sandpaper. They did not have to go far for material, they only cut down an alder tree or a birch and dug out the roots. After shaping and polishing they had beautiful drawing. These pipes had unique charm but also a substantial negative attribute – they could not resist heat of burning tobacco for that reason they had to be covered with sheet metal. Nowadays, pipes of native wood have not been made for a long time in Proseč. We can see them only in private collections and museums.
Native materials were completely replaced by briar roots (Erica arborea) wood that grows only around Mediterranean Sea. This beautiful, fire-resistant wood has been used since the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time mechanical production began and several years after the First World War manual pipe production came to an end in Proseč. In the twentieth of the last century Mr Kopperle's pipe factory was one of the biggest in Europe and in the thirties approximately six hundred people dealt with pipe production in Proseč. They made about five hundred kinds of pipes. Not only pipes were made in Proseč but also stems made of both native wood and South American horn. Girdlers were the inherent component of Proseč. They made many kinds of splendid ironwork. Soon after The Second World War private firms were put under state control and pipe production in Proseč and actually in whole country was centered into the only one workshop. Today there is one standard quality pipe factory with machine production in Proseč, the firm B.P.K. and the only private pipe maker – Pavel Háp, who tries to continue in long-time tradition of hand pipe making.
And one more backward step into history. Nowadays pipes are taken by car, by bus, by plane or they are carried by ship. At the very beginning of pipe production in Proseč, every craftsman took his wheelbarrow, loaded his products on and went on foot wherever he needed (and if he was lucky he was taken by a horse cart). He did not have to smell petrol. He did not have to wait for hours in the traffic jam and his mobil phone was not plastered to the ear. Fortunately even today in hurried and hectic time there are people, who manage to stop for a moment, sit by the fireside, hold a glass of good whisky and take a nice briar pipe. Then you can light up smoking mixture and watch rising smoke.
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