Butz-Choquin

Butz-Choquin is a pipe brand founded in 1858 in the city of Metz in northeastern France, taking its name from the surnames of its two founders, Jean-Baptiste Choquin and Gustave Butz. With a history spanning more than a hundred and sixty years, it is counted among the oldest brands in the French pipe industry, and today continues production in Saint-Claude, the town at the center of the country's pipe tradition.

A Design Born from a Shop

Butz-Choquin's origins lie not in a pipe workshop but in a retail tobacco business. Jean-Baptiste Choquin's shop in Metz was busy enough by the mid-nineteenth century to employ several people, and Gustave Butz was among that staff. The pair's relationship turned into kinship in 1858, when Butz married Choquin's daughter, Marie.

The "Choquin pipe," which appeared that same year, is considered the brand's founding product. The distinguishing feature of this bent-shaped model was its flattened bowl base, which allowed the pipe to stand upright on a surface. Records note that the model's mouthpiece was made of albatross bone and attached to the bowl with silver bands — a detail that rests on the brand's own history and the collector sources that draw on it. To take the design beyond individual commissions, Butz opened a workshop in Metz that same year, 1858; the business came to be known by its present name, formed from the combination of the two surnames.

The Move to Saint-Claude

The brand's second life began in 1951. That year, the Berrod-Regad company, which had acquired the Butz-Choquin brand, moved production from Metz to Saint-Claude in the Jura mountains. Following the mid-nineteenth-century adoption of heath root (briar) as a pipe material, the town was regarded as the world's pipe capital; this transformation is discussed in detail in the entry on the Briar Revolution and Saint-Claude. Butz-Choquin thus became a neighbor of established Saint-Claude firms such as Chacom.

The new management's first task was overhauling the distribution system; after the agent network was renewed, the brand turned to export in 1960. That these years are also remembered for various awards and a "golden cup" symbolizing French taste is information that rests largely on the company's own history and has not been confirmed by independent records. The expansion of the catalog, however, can be traced more concretely: production, which started with around ten lines, grew over time to more than seventy. This variety gave the brand the ability to offer both classic English shapes and its own French interpretations at once.

Changes of Ownership and Current Status

The Berrod family, keen for production to remain in Saint-Claude, handed the company over to a local entrepreneur in 2002; this person's name appears in sources as Fabien Guichon, and in some places as Gichon. The transfer proved short-lived: in 2006 ownership of the business passed to Denis Blanc, and the brand has continued production under this management.

Butz-Choquin pipes are recognized by the "BC" letter combination on their stamps and the Saint-Claude marking. Although it works at factory scale rather than as a single-piece artisan operation, its broad shape catalog and unbroken history make it one of the load-bearing brands of the French pipe tradition.