Comoy’s Designer 900 E 1711 Smooth Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Comoy’s is a historic brand in pipe making, and possibly the most historic brand in the making of briar pipes. Though originally founded in 1825 by a French family from Saint Claude, France, production of Comoy’s pipes was soon moved to London, England, where it established itself as one of the quintessential English pipe companies.

This looks to be a very special Comoy’s, and one very different from the make’s usual offerings. The Designer series seems to have been Comoy’s answer to the Collector series from Dunhill; hand-turned stummels without set shapes, whose designs were at the whim of their carver and of the briar itself. Regarding the latter, this one has plenty of beautiful bird’s-eye and cross grain patterns, so its ‘designer’ clearly did have a good vision for what this pipe could be. The pipe also comes with a matching three piece pipe tool, also carved from briar, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen from Comoy’s before.

The pipe is completely unsmoked, and the tamper is also unused. Both come with the pipe’s original presentation case. As for its provenance, the pipe was, according to the collector who sent it to our trade-in program, purchased in 1978. He included the pipe’s original receipt, shown in the last photo – adjusted for inflation, the 110 US dollars he paid for it would therefore be approximately 550 US dollars today.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.94 / 23.87mm

Bowl Depth: 1.92″ / 48.76mm

Weight: 2.1oz / 62g