Bristlecone Pine

During our first Kickstarter one of our backers put down a challenge in the comments, to see if I could come up with wood from the Methuselah Tree, the worlds oldest living Bristlecone Pine, and the worlds oldest living organism. While there’s no way in hell I would cut down a tree that’s well over 4,000 years old. Bristle Cone Pines, while not common, do grow in isolated groves just below the tree line all over the southwest.

So of course I made a few phone calls and found a very nice guy by the name of David Spiesman who builds beautiful furniture from the dead fall wood of Bristle Cone Pines. He agreed to sell me some of his stock. Some time during the whole Kickstarter fulfillment process the small branches I bought from him disappeared. So that lead to another frantic search that yielded a supplier out of Colorado with the only known legal permit to harvest Bristlecone Pine. They have the permit to harvest from a mountain top that was burned in a forest fire in the late 1800’s. So, no living trees are harmed and we can now get a consistent supply of Bristlecone Pine that is large enough to make polyhedrals from. 

Now for the really cool part. These dice sound like glass when you roll them! You see Bristlecone pines grow so slowly that their growth rings are very tightly packed, which makes for an excellent tap tone. That means the dice have a very crisp sound when you roll them. To preserve the unique sounds we do not clear coat dice made from bristlecone pine.