Chacom Centenaire 184, Smooth Bent Apple Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Chacom is one of France’s most historic and iconic makes. Its founders, the Comoy family, began their career as boxwood pipe-makers in the early 1800s, before briar had even been discovered, with Henri Comoy (of Comoy’s fame) emigrating to England in 1879 and founding the country’s first briar pipe factory. In 1922, Henri and his nephews, the Chapuis, founded the Chapuis Comoy pipe factory in Saint-Claude, France, which shortly after began producing pipes bearing the partnered families’ names – ‘Cha’ for Chapuis, and ‘Com’ for Comoy. Chacom has been the biggest name in French pipes ever since.

Given that ‘centenaire’ is French for ‘centenary,’ and given that the Chacom make itself only turned 100 in 2022, I don’t think this pipe was made to mark a century of Chacom pipes per se. It is certainly an older model, as evinced by the style of its box. I wonder, then, whether the Centenaire was produced to celebrate the birth of the Comoy venture writ large. That would make this pipe a 1979 manufacture, which makes sense to me, based on the style of the box it came in. And it’s a great pipe, one worthy of marking a milestone; it’s a bent apple, with a very warm, red stain that highlights plenty of flame grain and bird’s-eye grain patterns underneath. Unlike many Chacom pipes, this one also has a hand-cut stem.

The Centenaire also happens to be completely unsmoked and comes with its original box and sleeve. Like many Chacom pipes, it comes with a stinger, but this stinger is designed to be easily unscrewed and removed if its owner prefers to use it without one.

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 1.42″ / 36.06mm

Weight: 1.3oz / 38g