Directory of French Pipe Brands (1/2)

The Directory of French Pipe Brands is a reference list bringing together brief records of pipe brands founded in France or manufactured there. The country's pipe history has largely followed two axes: the town of Saint-Claude in the Jura mountains became, from the nineteenth century onward, the world center of briar pipemaking, while the area around Paris and Lyon built the trade and workshop network of clay and meerschaum pipemaking. This first part covers ninety-two brands in alphabetical order, from A. Lacroix SARL to Sea-Dog; each entry reports only facts that can be verified in the records.

Brands

• A. Lacroix SARL — A Saint-Claude firm whose roots go back to 1880. In 1925 it launched the La Belote brand, named after a card game widely played in France, and the line sold for more than twenty years. The factory, which employed thirty-five people between 1935 and 1940, had a workforce down to eight by the end of the century; the business was carried on by third-generation André Lacroix.

• A. Pandevant & Roy Co. — A firm that began trading in Paris in 1884. Its registered brands included E.P.C., E.P., Majestic, La Savoyarde and La Parisienne. Its activity ended somewhere between the late 1930s, when the Second World War began, and the early 1940s.

• Academy — One of many names held by the Oppenheimer Pipe group. Records indicate it was made in France, likely by Marechal Ruchon & Cie., and appeared in the group's catalogues around the 1950s.

• Ace of Spades — An Anglo-French joint brand run under the Comoy's umbrella.

• Ad Hoc Pipe — A pipe maker based in Saint-Claude. Records contain no historical information beyond the workshop's location.

• Aimé Besson — Aimé Besson opened his own workshop in Saint-Claude in 1878; he worked in briar and specialized in figural pipes modeled on sculpture. His pipes were sold by his son George Besson, who settled in Paris in 1904. George Besson in time became known as an art critic and collector; the works he gathered were exhibited at the Louvre in 1964 and 1965, and on his death in 1971 his collection passed to the French state.

• Albuisson — The artisan brand of Alain Albuisson. The maker comes from traditional woodcarving and specializes in briar pipes; in 1991 and 1997 he received the "Best Craftsman of France" award in the pipe-turning and pipe-carving categories. He has produced unusual designs such as spiral- and pebble-shaped bodies; a pipe he made in 2004, roughly eight millimetres long, was considered the smallest of its day.

• André Lançon — André Lançon founded his pipe factory in 1926, in a building his father had had built in 1899. The plant was bought around 1940 by Ropp, which had by then belonged to Cadogan Investments for over a decade. The factory produced the APL and Jura brands.

• Antidote — A brand used in the early twentieth century by the firm Jeantet-David, later known as Jeantet.

• APL — A pipe brand produced at the André Lançon factory during the first half of the twentieth century.

• Au Caid — The name and brand of a French tobacconist founded in the early twentieth century. It had its own production for a time; in later years its pipes were made by Chacom, to which it was connected through the Grenard family.

• Au Pacha — A Paris-based meerschaum pipe manufactory. It was founded as Maison Lenouvel in 1853 by Alfred Ferdinand Lenouvel, and passed successively into the partnerships of Desbois & Weber (1862-1887) and Desbois & Cheville (1867-1895). Claude Cheville bought out his partner's share in 1895 and sold the factory to the house of Sommer in 1900. Besides Paris, the firm had offices in cities such as Dijon, Le Mans, Montpellier, Grenoble, Amiens, Rouen and Nancy.

• Bargiel — Philippe Bargiel is a French craftsman who works meerschaum in keeping with the Viennese school. He prepares his bowls by dipping them in bleached spermaceti wax, as in the traditional method; he says this process gives a finer coloring as the pipe is smoked. He learned the craft at the Sommer workshop and works mainly on the repair of old meerschaum and briar pipes.

• Berrod-Regad — Ets Berrod-Regad was founded in 1919, when Arthur Berrod took over Lucien Regad's factory in Saint-Claude. In 1951 it bought the Butz-Choquin brand. The factory passed in 2006 to Michel Waille, owner of the EWA brand and president of Saint-Claude's guild of master pipe makers, and continued production under him. The Jima pipe, with its metal body and ceramic-lined, hard-plastic bowl, is one of the firm's unusual products.

• Bontemps — A brand name used within Berrod-Regad.

• Bourgeois — An old French brand run at the Saint-Claude workshop of craftsman André Bourgeois (1911-1983). The maker, whose full name was André Gustave Léon Bourgeois-Philippet, styled himself "the pipe king" and marketed his products under that name. The workshop's benches drew their power from the watermill on which the business was built.

• Brulor — A brand founded before the Second World War by the Paris wholesaler Brulois. Its pipes were made at the Ropp, Jeantet and Charles Hecht factories in Saint-Claude and sold only in France. The brand's activity ended in the late 1950s, so it is little known outside the country.

• Bunty — A group brand appearing in Oppenheimer catalogues around the 1950s. Production is thought to have taken place in France, probably at the Marechal Ruchon & Cie. workshops.

• C.J. Verguet Freres — A French factory founded in the nineteenth century. Its 1906 merger with Sina & Cie. gave rise to a large company within the Oppenheimer Pipe group, managed by Lucien Verguet. Records report 4.8 million pipes and bowls produced in 1917. It is associated with names such as GBD and Yello-Bole.

• Cadogan — Cadogan Investments Limited, a subsidiary of A. Oppenheimer & Co. Limited, was founded in 1920 to bring the group's acquisitions under one roof; among its first takeovers were BBB, Loewe & Co. and two pipe factories in Saint-Claude. The company continued gathering brands for decades and today owns registrations including Dr. Plumb's, Comoy's, GBD, Medico, Orlik, Irwin's and Ropp.

• Cassetari — The French brand of Charles Cassetari, a Corsican from a family of craftsmen; his grandfather had worked for Dunhill. He has also made pipes for a Paris tobacconist.

• CC Paris — The brand of a little-known French manufactory, whose boxes were embossed with a three-letter triangular emblem. The maker behind the retail business was the firm founded in 1867 as Cawley & Henry, later renamed Wolf & Mathiss. Its catalogue shows it offered goods for cigar and cigarette smokers as well as pipes.

• Chamaut — An old brand and factory based on Rue des Petits-Pères in Paris. Records credit it as the first maker of walking-stick pipes, in 1850.

• Chap — A brand issued in the 1920s by the Chapel Frères factory, founded in Saint-Claude in 1904. It later passed to Gefapip, and from 1988 became part of the Berrod-Regad group.

• Chapel Frères — A factory founded in Saint-Claude in 1904; its name also appears in records as Chapel Frés. It is the source of the Chap and La Gitana brands.

• Chretin — A pipe workshop on Rue Poyat in Saint-Claude. As was common among the region's factories, it produced work exclusively for particular tobacconists' shops. An apartment building now stands on the workshop's former site; all that remains is the sign on the old building's façade.

• Colossals — A name used by various manufacturers and importers. One documented example is French-made; it therefore seems unlikely to share a source with the Colossals pipes made at the Cellini workshop for M. Linkman & Co.

• Coquet — The clay pipe brand of Michel Coquet. A painter and sculptor by training, the craftsman turned to pipemaking after a period building watercraft. Alongside classic shapes inspired by old Flemish models, he also produces modern designs with hand-worked motifs; he uses horn from Saint-Claude for his stems. He lives in Vernègues.

• Courrieu — A family business that, by its own account, has made briar pipes since 1802 near the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, in Cogolin. The wood it uses is gathered by the maker's own hand from the Maures massif and the surrounding gulf; the trade has passed from father to son.

• Cuty Fort Group — Cuty-Fort Entreprises SA was founded in 1987 through the merger of Chacom, Jeantet, Vuillard, Lacroix, Ropp and other French makers. It was led by Dominique Jeantet and Yves Grenard, and the group continued production of these brands in France.

• Delacour — A factory founded in Saint-Claude around 1892 and expanded the following year. Its owner was Alix Delacour; the plant expanded again in 1909 and had its own briar-drying units. Pipe production ended in 1960, and the brand name is thought to have passed to Jeantet. The building later housed businesses including an optician, a dance school and a restaurant.

• Dorylaion — The meerschaum brand run in France by Turkish craftsman Galip Sağım. Sağım trained as a student of Gilbert Guyot and works to commission.

• Dr. Boston — A brand belonging in the early twentieth century to the Delacour factory, also used by its British counterpart Delacour Brothers. It was sold to the Berrod-Regad group in 1958 and became, with 9 mm filtered pipes in particular, a secondary Butz-Choquin brand aimed at the German market; it is known there in the mid and lower price ranges.

• Elie — The brand of a largely self-taught pipe maker working in France. He is not bound to a single style or material, using olive and strawberry-tree wood he gathers himself in Portugal alongside briar. He is one of the few makers to produce aluminum-bodied system pipes at workshop scale, and he makes bowls and parts for collectors of old metal pipes.

• Fancy — A French brand used for colored, painted and varnished Chacom-made pipes.

• FIRST — A French-made pipe brand resembling Dr. Grabow's Viking model. In the documented example, the shank is made entirely of plastic, with a paper filter under a bowl that unscrews for removal.

• Flamidor — Pipes have also been marketed under the name of Flamidor, actually a French lighter firm. The company was founded by Janvier Quercia, an Italian immigrant to France; from 1890 Quercia dealt in religious items made of precious metals, and after the discovery of flint took out patents for silver lighters. In 1908 he named the spark wheel he developed Flamidor, and in 1911 introduced the hinged-lid Briquet Parisien model.

• Fleur de Lis — A brand made at the GBD factory in France. All known examples use a meerschaum-lined bowl.

• G.V.G. — The initials refer to Georges Vincent Genod, grandfather of Jacques Craen, who made Genod pipes for many years. Since the stamp changed around the 1960s, bodies bearing the G.V.G. mark are quite old; Craen later found a number of such turn-of-the-century bodies forgotten in the factory's basement.

• Gardhill — A brand produced by the firm J. Vincent Fils in Saint-Claude. In the early 1990s, Gardhill accounted for most of the firm's production capacity; production ended when the company closed in 1993.

• Gefapip — A French brand from the Saint-Claude area. Its products appeared in the 1979 catalogue of the Tinder Box chain.

• Gérard Mermet — A French craftsman working in the small town of Avignon, just outside Saint-Claude. Records note that Algerian makers once sought his help in setting up a pipe business in Constantine.

• Gérard Prungnaud — Counted among France's leading clay pipe makers. He began production in 1978 and has a catalogue of seventy-five models, both molded and hand-shaped.

• GOC — An old Saint-Claude brand, short for Gros, Grenier, Ostero & Cie. Its secondary brand was named Prior. The name "Gros" is also linked to the partnership Vincent-Genod, Duparchy & Gros, which bought the Comoy-David factory in 1923. Records suggest the founders were wholesalers and financiers rather than pipe makers, and had pipes made under private label.

• Graco — The brand of the factory Grappin Fils et Cie. Alongside cheap pipes made from Algerian root, it also produced leather-covered bowl models; the stamp was gold on the finest pieces and white or silver on others. It closed as an independent brand in 1968, though Saint-Claude-made pipes bearing the Graco stamp have since been seen on the market.

• Grappin Fils et Cie. — An old French factory founded in Saint-Claude in 1863 under the name Osias Grappin. It also had a plant in Brussels.

• Greaves — One of the brands belonging to the Oppenheimer Pipe group; made in France, probably by Marechal Ruchon & Cie.

• Guedi Nobili — A maker living in southeastern France, near the Italian border. He took up pipemaking after retiring from farming; meeting Mimmo Domenico of the Romeo workshop steered him toward larger freehand forms. He says he draws inspiration from makers such as Uwe Maier, Manfred Hortig and Abi Natur.

• J. Vincent Fils — A firm on Rue Carnot in Saint-Claude. Its history goes back to the workshop Henri Vincent-Genod set up in his home in 1898; his son Léon expanded the workshop in 1909, and Léon's son Jules took over the Verguet-Buffet pipe factory in 1923. The company took the name J. Vincent Fils in 1927 and closed in 1993.

• Jean Lamy — Born in 1914 in Azans, in the Jura, Jean Lamy worked as a typesetter in Dole and Dijon between 1925 and 1939. A youth organization he joined in 1942 brought him to Saint-Claude, where his office happened to sit next to a pipe workshop. After the Second World War, a pipe-trading partnership he set up with a friend fell apart quickly, and he opened his own workshop, running production with one or two workers and drawing on outworkers who handled touch-up, painting and parts work at home.

• Job Clerc — A French craftsman from Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie (1854-1935). His factory, which made fired-clay pipes, first closed in 1933, reopened and closed several times, and shut for good in 1972.

• Jura — An administrative region in eastern France, in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, home to Saint-Claude, the center of French pipemaking. The name has been used in the lines of many makers; Chacom's line of the same name is still produced. As a brand, Jura was a product of the factory André Lançon founded in 1926, which later passed to Ropp.

• Kings Cross — A brand made in France by Chapuis-Comoy using Algerian briar. The same name has also been used on Savinelli pipes, more commonly seen in the American market and made with Italian briar.

• Koch — A brand under which Eugène Kroch built considerable renown between 1886 and 1924. For a time it was the sole brand producing for Butz-Choquin.

• L. Fiolet — The brand of the Fiolet clay pipe factory, active in the nineteenth century in Saint-Omer, in the Pas-de-Calais. In 1860 its annual output exceeded ten million pipes.

• L. Roux — A brand founded by Louis Roux in Cogolin; the maker is known for successful freehand pipes, some with plateau tops. He sold the brand to Santo d'Amico in 1956; d'Amico stopped carving in the early 1980s but continued selling.

• L.J. Georges — The brand of Corsican craftsman Lucien Jassois Georges. Its roots go back to the Riviera Briar Pipe Company, a briar-exporting business his grandfather Victor Georges founded in the 1920s. After the company was sold in 1975, Lucien made a trade of the craft he had learned from the Dane Sven Knudsen. Alongside briar he uses olive, ebony and rosewood, and makes roughly five hundred pipes a year.

• La Bruyère — S.A. La Bruyère, founded in Paris in 1908, established a plant in Saint-Claude within the following two years. In 1921 it expanded the factory across the street, and in 1932 absorbed its factory into the Chapuis-Comoy brand. Following Chacom's success, the old name was revived in 1957 and the company took the name Chapuis-Comoy & Cie.

• La Gitana — A brand launched by Chapel Frères in 1925. Its meerschaum-bowled model, introduced thirty years later, was among France's best-selling pipes in 1968.

• La Normandy — A brand the Cuty Fort Group created for the American market, referring to the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944. Its designs were done by Pierre Morel of Chacom; it continued to be made with the shapes and finishes admired in the first half of the twentieth century.

• La Radica — The brand of Natale Novello, a Sicilian who has lived in France's Yvelines region since 1997. He began with repair work in 2019 and moved into making his own pipes in 2021, learning method by working a week each alongside Pascal Piazzolla, Vilma Armellini and Mario Pascucci. He uses briar from Tuscany and Calabria along with ebonite, acrylic and Cumberland stems; most of his pipes are handmade.

• Lacroix — The brand dates to 1962, though the family's trade is far older: Eugène Lacroix was making pipes for the Delacour factory in the nineteenth century, and his sons founded their own factory in 1921. Grandson Jean charted his own course in 1962, founding Jean Lacroix pipes, and by coincidence settled in the old Delacour building where his grandfather had worked eighty-five years earlier. Jean Lacroix, Chacom, Jeantet and Vuillard now belong to Cuty-Fort; Jean, known for his freehand pipes, is an active member of Saint-Claude's guild of master pipe makers.

• Le Pipier de Lunel — The brand of Jean Waille, son of André Waille and brother of Michel Waille. After trips to Algeria, he began small-scale production in Lunel, at a workshop left by an old craftsman; the maker has since retired.

• Ligne Bretagne — A hand-finished pipe brand Trever Talbert launched while living in Brittany. The pipes were made from bodies left over from the previous owner of the workshop the Talberts bought, Patrice Sébilo, and finished using Talbert's finishing methods.

• LMB — A brand run by Gilbert Guyot in Paris from 1911. Period advertising claimed the system trapped much of the nicotine and cleaned itself — claims typical of the advertising language of the day. The brand fitted a transparent channel to its modern pipes around 1960; its 1920 and 1923 catalogues are documented.

• Majestic — No recorded information survives beyond the brand name.

• Marechal Ruchon & Cie. — The company of Auguste Marechal and Ferdinand Ruchon. It owned the GBD brand from the late nineteenth century until 1902, when the company was sold to Oppenheimer Pipe and renamed Marechal, Ruchon & Co., Ltd. The brand disappeared with the founding of Cadogan, though its name lived on in the GBD Marcee pipes produced until after the Second World War.

• Melan Pipe — The brand of a pipe maker working in Paris. The maker states that working by methods as old as possible, and communicating directly with users, is at the center of his practice.

• Morell Mackenzie — A brand named after Sir Morell Mackenzie, the English laryngologist who lived from 1837 to 1892. A BBB model of the same name is known; a documented example also carries the stamp "Morell Mackenzie, French Make" and a 1924 Chesterfield hallmark, which links the pipe to the firm of Maurice Strauss and Henry Simon, founded in 1905.

• Neuve — A now-defunct brand from Saint-Claude. No further details survive in the records.

• Nicolas — The name and brand of the clay pipe factory Jean Nicolas founded in Lyon in the nineteenth century. The business has stayed in the family; since 1976 it has been run by Jean-Marie Nicolas, who received the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 1991 and also makes briar pipes.

• Nicotrap — A group name appearing in Oppenheimer catalogues; its pipes are accepted to have been made in France, probably by Marechal Ruchon & Cie.

• Noel — The name and brand of a well-known French clay pipe craftsman. His factory in Lyon was bought by Gambier in 1870; the business also had ties to the Nicolas factory.

• Nomy — One of the many pipe brands made in Saint-Claude. No further details survive in the records.

• Noxx-all — A brand used in Saint-Claude before the Second World War. It was later bought by Jeantet, which stopped production under this name after the war.

• Noymer — A brand documented by a single French-made, leather-covered pipe example.

• Nuttens Pipes — The brand of Bruno Nuttens, born in Belgium and long resident in France. He moved into pipemaking after starting with repair work and progressed quickly under the guidance of Pierre Morel. He is influenced by German makers and by the style of Paolo Becker; alongside handmade pipes he also offers lines with pre-turned bowls, and is known for his sandblasted surfaces.

• OSA — A now-defunct brand of the firm Gros, Grenier, Ostorero et Cie., also known by the abbreviation GOC.

• Out-O-Doors — One of the brands belonging to the Oppenheimer Pipe group, made in France, probably by Marechal Ruchon & Cie.

• Paul Viou — The name and brand of a French craftsman who first sold his pipes by mail order and later supplied military institutions. He also made carved pipes and occasionally used horn stems. The brand passed through the hands of Paul Guilland and Vuillard before coming to Jacques Craen; the pipes were made in Saint-Claude by Genod, stamped P. Viou, and produced largely for export.

• Piazzolla — The brand of Pascal Piazzolla, a cousin of the great tango composer Astor Piazzolla. He entered the trade in Saint-Claude at Chapuis-Comoy, within La Bruyère; as a designer he worked for firms including Butz-Choquin, Waille, Jeantet-David and Bontemps. Between 1967 and 1978 he contributed to Jean Lacroix's business structure, then moved to the Annecy region to develop his own style, earning numerous awards along the way.

• Pierre Cardin — Pierre Cardin-stamped pipes from the 1970s. Records suggest these may have resulted from an order the designer's company placed with a Saint-Claude factory; the name is also noted to have been used as a brand in the American market.

• Pipe de Roi — A brand name associated with André Bourgeois's workshop, taken from the craftsman's own self-styled title of "pipe king."

• Prior — The secondary brand of GOC, short for Gros, Grenier, Ostero & Cie. The name "Gros" from the same circle also appears in the partnership that bought the Comoy-David factory in 1923; the following year this partnership took the name Vincent-Genod & Gros Frères.

• R. Kaufer — A brand documented by an example marked Berlin on the bowl and France on the stem.

• Radford's — A name used on mass-produced pipes with ebonite and acrylic stems, marketed by Butz-Choquin, Chacom and Nording. Marked with a stylized R, it is a private label for a tobacco firm widespread in Germany; the 9 mm filtered pipes are made at Chacom.

• Reybier — The brand of Saint-Claude craftsman Bernard Reybier. He has made unusual pipes such as examples with two or three bowls; the maker was nearing retirement due to his advanced age.

• Robert's — A name of uncertain origin. One known example is thought possibly to be the work of Edward's; two other examples are Danish freehands carrying the IIS stamp, which points to the Karl Erik or Preben Holm workshop. That the pieces appear to have been sourced from different makers suggests the name may have been a store brand.

• Romain — The secondary brand of Butz-Choquin. It was created under the name Claude Romain in 1979 by the Berrod-Regad group for the German market. The name combines Romain, the fifth-century founder of the Condat area now corresponding to Saint-Claude, and Claude, the seventh-century bishop who gave the town its name; it is stamped Claude Romain and Made in France.

• Ropp — Eugène-Léon Ropp (1830-1907) took out a patent in 1869 for making pipes from wild cherry wood, and in 1870 founded the workshop to produce them in Bussang, in the Vosges mountains. The business moved around 1893 to the old Sicard mill near Baume-les-Dames; the products sold well both domestically and in export. Shortly before 1914, sole distribution in the United Kingdom and its colonies was taken over by A. Frankau & Co., owner of the BBB brand; a workshop for making briar pipes was acquired in Saint-Claude in 1917, with a small polishing building added in 1923.

• S.T. Dupont de Paris — Pipes documented under the name of the Paris luxury goods firm; the known example is dated 1976.

• Sea-Dog — One of the brands belonging to the Oppenheimer Pipe group. Its group catalogue from around the 1950s indicates it was made in France, probably by Marechal Ruchon & Cie.