Comoy's History and a Guide to Dating Its Pipes

The Comoy's dating guide gathers the ways of placing the London firm Comoy's pipes into a production range based on their stamps. The firm never at any point struck a mark giving the production year directly on a pipe; since there is no year code to check as with Dunhill pipes, the date is narrowed by stacking together the shape of the brand wording, the origin stamp, the "C" inlaid on the mouthpiece, and the series name. The result is most often not a single year but a range of several years. The firm's general history is told in the Comoy's of London entry.

Period Lines

The family, according to records, began pipe making with François Comoy in the French town of Saint-Claude in 1825; briar (funda kökü) became the main material in these workshops a short time later. Henri Comoy, born in 1850, moved to London in 1879 and opened a small workshop in Seven Dials. Production moved to Clerkenwell in 1895 and to a larger building in 1913; the business was incorporated in 1914 as H. Comoy & Co. Ltd. Henri died in 1924 at seventy-four, and the firm passed to his nephews Louis and Charles Chapuis. Records say the firm came under the umbrella of Cadogan Investments Ltd. in 1929, which brought together the pipe companies of Civic and Oppenheimer. Because production shrank to a small workshop during the Second World War, Comoy's pipes from the 1940s are scarce. Family control passed entirely to Cadogan in the early 1980s; this date marks the main dividing line in the collection.

Brand and Origin Stamps

On the earliest pipes "Comoy's" is struck in forward-leaning, joined script, carrying a long tail running back from beneath the "s." This form points to roughly 1900–1919. From around 1917 to the late 1930s, the stamp turns to a curving capital letterform: serif letters, an apostrophe, and a "C" larger than the rest. This curving stamp was also used briefly right after the war. Around 1945 the wording drops to a straight line. After the 1950s the stamp moves to block letters; three variants are distinguished: an unserifed form with an apostrophe and a large "C," a serifed form with the same features, and a short-lived form with no apostrophe and a shrunken "C." Because new dies were ordered as old ones wore out, old and new molds were used side by side for a while, blurring the years of transition.

The origin stamp adds a separate layer. "London Made," in one line or two, reaches back as far as 1902; when it was dropped is debated, with stamp archives giving the mid-1910s and part of the pipe literature giving the 1930s. Comoy's is considered the first London maker to use this wording. "Made in England" is set inside a circle; examples dating back to 1910 are known, but it becomes truly widespread only in the 1930s. The circled "Made in London" with a straight "England" line right beneath it, on the other hand, emerges with the postwar export push, in the early 1950s.

The Three-Piece "C" on the Mouthpiece

The brand's inlaid "C" symbol began to be worked into the side face of the mouthpiece around 1919. The letter is not a single piece: the center of a round white inlay and the open mouth of the letter are drilled separately and filled with shrinking black pieces. Because it requires three separate drillings, this workmanship is known as the "three-piece C" and continues into the Cadogan period. Examples from the 1920s and early 1930s are noticeably thinner than postwar ones. Cadogan moved first to a single-hole inlay with a "C" at its center, then to laser printing.

Series Names and the Silver Band

Series names also narrow the range. Prima was the top grade in the early 1900s; Tradition was released in 1925 for the firm's hundredth year. Grand Slam, together with a metal filter mechanism set into the shank, was introduced in 1933; the US patent no. 2,001,612 read on these pipes was filed that same year and granted in 1935. The name Blue Riband comes from the title given to the fastest ocean liner crossing the Atlantic; Cunard's Queen Mary took this record in August 1936. London Pride sat just below, a step with a lighter finish. Old Bruyere and Virgin Briar, meanwhile, no longer appear in the 1965 catalogue; these names point to an earlier period.

The most decisive anchor is the mark on the silver band. In the English system, the walking lion shows the fineness of the silver, the leopard's head the London assay office, and the letter the year; the year-letter practice goes back to 1478. Because bands arrived at the factory in batches, the year the mark gives can be a year earlier than the pipe itself; even so, no other clue gives as narrow a range as this one.