Butz Choquin Extra Large Smooth Calabash (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 one shows off some very nice bird’s-eye briar underneath its brown finish, and is accented with a horn-like acrylic ferrule.

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

Details:

Length: 6.9″ / 175.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.91 / 23.11mm

Bowl Depth: 2.33″ / 59.18mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g