Thomas Richard Mehret lives and works in northern Germany, not far from the European heartland of pipe making, Denmark. Thomas has taken a great deal of his styling influence from the Danish school of work, and it is well reflected in his pipes. 

Getting started was not too difficult. Brand recognition is the thing that sells your product and one step that Thomas Richard pipes took was to start their initial marketing in eBay in Germany, where their pipes sold well. This was a good jump start, and surely helped to fund growth in the company. His web site declares:

“His pipes immediately found the desired attention and were topics of a extremely positive discussions in appropriate Internet fora.”

In the fall of 2003 Tom sent three pipes along with a friend to be shown to some pipe enthusiasts, collectors  and fellow pipecrafters at the Pipe World Championship in Barcelona, Spain. The response was universally positive, giving Thomas the drive to begin to produce his own line in earnest. 

Since then his pipes have developed a large following in Germany and Europe, and are even sold in the US. Current production pipes reflect a solid Danish influence, and are are considerably much more abstract and ornate flare that also includes more angular takes on standard shapes. Thomas’ pipes typically carry a beautiful grain and fine finishes ranging from smooth to rusticated. Thomas is well known for beautiful stems, utilizing decorative accents of boxwood, rosewood or snakewood, with equal attention to shank accents as well. 

From his web saite we are told:

“One can order Tom´s pipes from many Internet sites as e.g. from  scandpipes.com. and Esterval´s Pipe House. There are also many retailers in Europe, as e.g. Peter Heinrichs in Cologne or Ostermann´s in Vienna, in Japan, in the USA (where he´s attending the Chicagoland Pipe Show for many years now) and, just recently, in Russia.  A preview for recent pipes is available on Tom´s web-site.” 

In the US, Thomas Richard pipes are available at Quality Pipes, the Briary.com.