Butz Choquin Calabash Vintage Rustic (Unsmoked Estate)

With its origins in an 1858 collaboration between Jean-Baptiste Choquin and Gustave Butz, Butz-Choquin ultimately become one of the premier smoking pipe companies in 20th century France. The brand is known both for its stylish variations on traditional English-French shapes and for its exploration of atypical and elaborate finishes. The brand is also known for its collaborations with celebrated French pipe-makers, such as Paul Lanier and Alain Albuisson, who made some of Butz-Choquin’s highest-grade pipes for the company.

Calabashes were something of a staple in Butz-Choquin’s output, which exhibited various approaches to the form across the decades. Typically, these were one-piece designs, rather than the two-piece of the traditional gourd calabash, though Butz-Choquin’s renditions were nonetheless very large and deep chambered, just like the calabashes of old.

This particular example is from the Vintage Rustic line from a few years back, and while it is technically a one-piece, though keen eyed observers will note that it is accented with an exotic hardwood, lending the shape its signature “cap.” The main body of the pipe, on the other hand, is tried-and-true briar, as with all modern Butz-Choquin Calabash models.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.88 / 22.35mm

Bowl Depth: 2.00″ / 50.8mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g