Directory of French Pipe Brands (2/2)

This directory brings together, on a single page, brands named in French pipemaking for which no detailed record exists sufficient to warrant a standalone entry. Since the nineteenth century, pipe production in France has been concentrated largely in the town of Saint-Claude in the Jura mountains, where closely clustered workshops were founded, merged and changed hands. The entries below are given in alphabetical order and form the second and final part of the directory.

Brands

• SEG — Only the brand name appears in records; no documentation survives regarding its manufacturer, period or location.

• Simon Vuillard & Strauss — This twentieth-century Saint-Claude factory shortened its name over time to Vuillard & Strauss. British-capitalized, the firm's product range included the brands Captain, Comfy, Hem Arrow, Kola and W.

• Sina & Cie — Founded in the late nineteenth century, the factory merged in 1906 with C.J. Verguet Frères to form a large production facility. After the merger, the business passed into the ownership of the Oppenheimer group, managed by Lucien Verguet. The brands Old Brian, Sina, Sporta, Veni, Vidi and Vici were produced under this umbrella.

• Sunrise — Cited as an example of a single brand name produced in two countries at once. Until the early 1970s, during the period of close collaboration between Chapuis-Comoy and Comoy's, Sunrise-stamped pipes were made both in Saint-Claude and in London.

• Terminus — Takes its name from the "Terminus system," signed EWA, intended to cool smoke as it travels the length of the shank. In the mechanism, a tube is set inside a widely drilled shank; two holes coming from the bowl open onto either side of this tube, and the thin tube in the stem also fits inside the shank's tube. Smoke first fills the chamber inside the shank, leaving its tar and residue there, before being drawn through the tubes to the smoker. Stems are mostly horn. The same brand name was also used at the Gradclément-Gauteron factory.

• Vincent-Genod — The factory was opened in Saint-Claude in 1865 by Georges Vincent-Genod, and passed into the hands of Comoy-David in 1923. In 1939 his son-in-law John Craen joined the business and introduced various technical innovations. Twenty years later Jacques Craen joined the company, and in 1970 took over management from his father, launching the Genod brand.

• Vuillard — The brand's founder was Henri Vuillard, who worked in Saint-Claude. The business had a London branch under the name Vuillard & Strauss; the Lord and Turf brands are accepted to have been made in Saint-Claude. The brand's last owner was Emile Vuillard. Henri Vuillard & Cie. was folded, along with the Jeantet and John Lacroix brands, into the Cuty Fort group — founded in 1987 and led by Chacom — by 1988.

• Vuillermoz et Goujon — A firm that operated in Saint-Claude and no longer survives. Its recorded brands are Aerator, Dr. Scott, Normandie, Oceana, Phonix, Ventil and VRG.

• Waldorf — The brand is known only through its stamp. The documented example carries the wording "Waldorf Supreme, Imported Briar, Made in France"; no further record survives of its history.

• Wessex — The name was first registered in England in 1899 as the brand of pipe, haberdashery and tobacconist-supplies wholesaler Hall & Fitzgerald, and production later moved to France, to the Chacom workshop. The brand is thought to be connected to the Wessex Tobacco Company, founded by pipe tobacco specialists in London in the early 1980s. Some models were designed by the German architect and designer Peter Kliem; these pipes were made at Saint-Claude workshops with acrylic and Cumberland stems. The stamp shows either the letter W or a black dot on a silver ground. The same name was also used by Denicotea.

• Yves Grenard — Both a registered brand and the name of the manager of the Chapuis-Comoy factory, maker of Chacom. Grenard, a second cousin of Pierre Comoy, has led the company since 1971; he also serves as president of the Saint-Claude regional manufacturers' union and of the town's guild of master pipe makers.

• Èmile Vuillard — A factory founded in Saint-Claude in the nineteenth century, the continuation of the Hyppolite Vuillard business. Between 1987 and 2001 it operated alongside the Vuillard brand under the umbrella of Cuty Fort Group SA.