Roger Wallenstein

=== Blue Lobster Pipes ===
Roger "Walle" Wallenstein (a pseudonym), born on November 29, 1950 in Offenbach/Main, is a German pipe maker who only started making tobacco pipes in the summer of 2004 at the age of 53. Walle is a lawyer by profession and has no technical or artistic training. He was an "apprentice" with the experienced pipe makers Gerhard Wilhelm and Peter Klein, with whose help he managed to exhibit his first pipes at the famous pipe fair in Chicago just under a year later - and sell them all. This enormous success suggested that he should get his friend, the now deceased jeweler Peter "Pit" Rohrbach, excited about the new hobby, and so they created the "Blue Lobster Pipes" platform together to market the pipes on the Internet. The website (www.Blue-Lobster-Pipes.com) still exists, but unfortunately hasn't been updated for years. Walle, who considers himself an IT idiot, excuses this by saying that he prefers to spend his precious free time making pipes rather than worrying about "this stupid stuff". A visit to the site is still recommended, as the "Typicals" section contains a wide range of his work.
=== Shapes ===
Initially, Walle's declared aim was to make a new shape out of every new square, outside of the traditional viewing habits. Over the years, a large number of completely different and unusual pipes have been created. By no means all of them can be described as successful, but the majority of these new shapes have proven to be groundbreaking and have led to Walle now being one of the most copied pipe makers in the world. His own favorite shapes, which he constantly reinterprets, include “Cheeky Girl,” “Longford,” “The Pyg,” “Lugalla,” and the “Bonefish” and “Wartfish” variants. However, it can be observed that Walle has been increasingly inspired by classic and Scandinavian pipe shapes in recent years. It is no coincidence that he considers Sixten Ivarsson to be the most important pipe designer of all time. For several years now, all of Walle's mouthpieces have been made from rod material and fitted with the typical "Kussmaul lips". These have no smoking function, but serve solely as a visual identification mark and unique selling point.
==== The Jackbone Pipe ====
The development of the “Jackbone” pipes dates back to 2009. Wallenstein has created a new principle of smoking a comfortable pipe. He called it The Jackbone pipe. The mouthpiece is constructed to rest on your chin. With this mouthpiece you are able to hold a bigger pipe comfortably between your teeth. The pictures give you an overview of the shapes, all carrying Irish related names. 
Wallenstein_Acorn_(1).JPG|Acorn
Wallenstein_BrittasBonnet.JPG|Britta's Bonnet
Wallenstein_FingalsCave.JPG|Fingal's Cave
Wallenstein_GraftonStreet.JPG|Grafton Street
Wallenstein_Rasharkin.JPG|Rasharkin
Wallenstein_Tullycanna.JPG|Tullycanna
Wallenstein_Yewberry.JPG|Yewberry
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Wallenstein-Lugalla.jpg
Wallenstein-Wartfish 3.png
=== Walle 'n' Friends ===
Not least in order to learn from them, Walle has been promoting contact and collaboration with other pipe makers from the beginning, which has resulted not only in lasting friendships, but also in a number of jointly produced pipes, such as with Jörgen and Kai Nielsen, Brad Pohlmann, Paolo Becker, Ron Smith and others abroad. One of the first joint projects, however, was with the German pipe makers Axel Glasner and Oliver Camphausen. The unfortunately only around 30 pipes that resulted from this collaboration were offered under the brand "B.R.O.S.", the abbreviation of the ambitious and self-ironic self-designation "Bonny Rebels Of the Shape". The majority of the pipes were sold to Tsuge. They can be considered absolute rarities. During the carnival days of 2014, the now world-famous pipe maker Uwe Maier held a workshop for the first time in his home in the Swabian Alb, which was named "Grainstorm 14" at the suggestion of the pipe genius Christian Wolfsteiner, who unfortunately died just two years later, and became an annual, permanent fixture for the following years until the Corona pandemic. There is room for a maximum of seven like-minded people in the workshop, and so, in addition to the core group, a whole series of pipe makers attended the workshop with changing international participation. In addition to Uwe Maier, Christian Wolfsteiner and Walle, the core group included the other representatives of the "German Avantgard", namely Steffen Müller, who died in 2024, and Manfred Hortig.
=== Jolly Roger ===
After Walle's success, the well-known German wholesaler Otto and Kopp offered him a collaboration in 2008, which was quickly agreed upon. Kopp took over the global marketing of the unique pieces, while Walle was able to concentrate entirely on pipe making. He also had the opportunity to design a new line of serial pipes for Kopp. This resulted in several models that were successfully marketed under the name "Jolly Roger". The pipes - machine-made in France in three qualities - were all designed for 9mm filters and came onto the market in a white tin and with 2 acrylic mouthpieces each in black and white. The “Tortuga” model was equipped with a magnetic connection between the head and mouthpiece instead of a cone, based on an idea for which Walle even had a utility model protection for a few years, which, however, only applied to Germany and therefore could be copied outside the country without legal consequences and still is today in many cases.
Wallenstein-JollyRoger-2.jpg
Wallenstein-JollyRoger-1.jpg
=== Driftwood finish ===
In search of an uncomplicated alternative to sandblasting pipe wood, Walle developed his Driftwood finish in 2009 after countless attempts with all sorts of supposedly promising means. It is a mild chemical treatment of the wood in an immersion bath. The result is a type of weathering in which, like sandblasting, the hard parts of the natural grain stand out. A pleasant side effect of the method is that the wood leaves the bath bleached, allowing the use of unusual and unusual stains, a fact that Walle often uses on his pipes with astonishing results. Rainer Barbi, the most important representative of Scandinavian pipe design in Germany, was enthusiastic and congratulated Walle on his groundbreaking innovation in a personal letter. Since the method produces the best results with very old briar, but such wood is rarely perfectly grained and often flawed, Walle's pipes are predominantly subjected to the method and therefore rarely have a smooth surface. A small number of "Jolly Roger" blanks were refined by Walle with Dremel and his driftwood or camouflage finish, a further development. These exhibits are also real rarities. Marketing On the recommendation of Anne-Julie Schlieder, with whom he is friends, Walle was invited to the first pipe fair in Beijing in 2015. The overwhelming success of this trip and other options prompted Walle to look for new ways of marketing, which led to the amicable separation of Otto and Kopp. Since then, his unique pieces have been sold at trade fairs and via his Facebook account, even though Blue Lobster Pipes says they are only available in specialist shops.
WallenStein-Driftwood-2012_4.jpg
WallenStein-Driftwood-Austin Stack's.png
WallenStein-Driftwood-Ballerina.jpg
WallenStein-Driftwood-Ballymote.png
WallenStein-Driftwood-Bkack Jack.jpg
WallenStein-Driftwood-Bonefish 1.jpg
WallenStein-Driftwood-Cheeky Girl 1.png
=== Personal/Trivia ===
Walle lives and works in a small town in the far west of Germany, not far from the border of France and Luxembourg. His real name is Ruprecht Wagner and he used his pseudonym long before he began his career as a pipemaker in order to keep the authorship of his drawings and paintings secret from the local population. He has three children and two grandchildren.
The fact that Walle often names his products with something to do with Ireland is due to his great love of the Emerald Isle, which he sometimes visits several times a year.
In the first years of his career, Walle stamped his pipes with the Wallenstein logo, a consecutive number and, for grading purposes - in keeping with "Blue Lobster Pipes" - with seafood symbols with a lobster as a sign of top quality.
WallenStein-Mascot.png
WallenStein-Mortello.png
WallenStein-P1050444.JPG
WallenStein-P1190713.JPG
WallenStein-P1200610.JPG
WallenStein-Puck Fair.png
WallenStein-Rhodesian.png
=== Contact Information ===
 Email: mailto:info@blue-lobster-pipes.com
 Website: http://www.blue-lobster-pipes.com/
 Distribution: Roger is selling his pipes at international pipes show, and on Facebook: 
 Roger Wallenstein and 
 Blue Lobster Pipes
Category:Pipe makers by nationality
Category:Germany