Asikyan Yerevan

Acorn

The acorn: a rounded bowl that pinches toward the rim

The acorn as a twentieth-century catalogue shape, and Asikyan 469/25 — rusticated, ruby stem, gold mark.

· Yerevan

Where it comes from

The acorn is a twentieth-century English and Danish catalogue name for a bowl that looks like the nut: full at the heel, tighter at the rim. It sits next to the apple in old lists. Danes later made it slimmer. It is not a Dublin (the Dublin opens at the top) and not a tomato (the tomato is flat). There is no famous inventor; there is a drawing everyone recognised.

Asikyan Acorn 469/25, Rusticated
Acorn 469/25 · Rusticated

The specification

Bowl: rounded, pinching toward the rim. Shank: usually straight or lightly bent. 469/25 is the acorn in this cabinet: rusticated dark, ruby acrylic stem, gold stem mark, 2025 archive. No millimetres on the plate. The chamber still has to be even; the pinch is the outside line.

Next to the apple

If you like a round bowl that does not open as wide as 419/24’s tomato and does not stay as spherical as 423/24’s apple, the acorn is the word. One serial on this site. Write with 469/25 if that plate is the one you mean.

From the cabinet

Pipes in this note

Asikyan Acorn 469/25, Rusticated, handmade in Yerevan
469/25

Acorn

Rusticated

Also in the notes

Read further

Material

Algerian briar, and how Levon reads a block

Why Asikyan pipes start with Algerian briar — sometimes Italian — and how the shape is chosen from the wood, not forced onto it.

The mark

How to read an Asikyan serial

The stamp reads Armenia · Asikyan · Hand Made, then the serial. The first three digits are the count; the last two are the year. From 116/21 the stem also carries AL.

Finish

The smooth finish: when the grain is left to speak

Levon Asikyan leaves a pipe smooth when birdseye or straight grain is worth keeping. Stain in thin passes, a quiet sheen — never a plastic gloss.