Iwan Ries & Co.

Iwan Ries & Co. is a Chicago-based tobacconist house; the business states in its own marketing that it is the oldest tobacconist in the United States still owned by the same family. It is not itself a pipe workshop; its main business is keeping a broad selection of pipes and tobacco together, alongside commissioning pipes carrying its own name from various makers. In this respect, it is known in the pipe world not as a "manufacturer" but as a "retail house" that shapes the product through its own commissions.

Founding and Name Change

The business's origin traces to a shop called E. Hoffman & Co., founded in 1857 by German immigrant Edward Hoffman. Its first location was the famous Sherman House Hotel of the period; the hotel's guests and the surrounding business district formed a natural customer base. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed this building, and the business moved to a new address.

To run the growing business, Hoffman took on his nephew Iwan Ries in 1891, and when he retired in 1898 he left the shop to him. Ries sold off the manufacturing arm and changed the shop's name to Iwan Ries & Co. According to accounts, the chain of succession continued in later generations under the Levi surname: Stanley Levi, husband of Ries's daughter Rosalie, took over the business, and in the next generation Chuck Levi joined; the business is run today by Kevin Levi. The claim of unbroken family ownership spanning five generations rests largely on the business's own promotional material.

Product Philosophy and Private-Label Pipes

Iwan Ries's reputation comes not from a single signature shape but from the sheer variety it holds. According to its corporate materials, its stock holds more than fifteen thousand pipes, gathered from many brands and made from a range of materials led by briar, including meerschaum examples as well. The pipes carrying the shop's own name, meanwhile, have been commissioned from different workshops; accordingly, when examining a pipe stamped "Iwan Ries," the actual maker must be inferred from its workmanship and shape characteristics. This kind of private-label practice was common in 20th-century American tobacco retailing.

The business also blends its own tobaccos. The best known of these is a pipe tobacco called Three Star, which appeared in the 1950s; the blend is also referred to in some sources as Three Star Blue. Mail order and a catalog system carried the business's reach beyond Chicago.

Its Location Today

In 1968 the business bought a building of note in architectural history, the 1881 Jewelers Building designed by Adler & Sullivan; it has operated at the address 19 South Wabash Avenue ever since. Following regulations restricting tobacco use in enclosed spaces, a separate lounge arrangement was set up within the building. For collectors, the institution's real importance lies in the fact that the catalog and stamp records accumulated over its long life form a documentary chain useful for tracing the American pipe trade. The principles in the entry on storing pipe tobacco, concerning how old stock tobacco is preserved, also apply to this kind of long-lived inventory.