Assigning the correct grade to a pipe is a daunting task, it is difficult to do and often it may lead to misunderstading, in fact there are briars with a terrible surface that are excellent for smoking and briars with a beautiful grain that worth nothing. Since the beginning I met many difficulties in classifying my pipes without being able to find a reasonable solution. However, starting from June 2011 I introduced a new and more simple method to identify the grade of my pipes borrowing the names from golf, the game I have always loved and who have never been able to successfully play. As in the real world we have to start playing balls from teeing ground into the hole by successive strokes. The first level of grading is just named 'teeing ground' and it refers to regular grained pipes, then after a first shot we encounter the 'fairway'' that, in our case, refers to a well grained surface. Once approached to the 'putting green' we are at the top level with the straight grained pipes. Special pieces are named 'hole in one' and they are quite rare.

For your convenience the table below summarizes my grading system.