Butz Choquin Natural 1571 Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked, 9mm

Description

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.

Here’s something you don’t see much these days: a modern all-briar pipe. Aside from a few artisans, the all-briar is all but lost in the contemporary, though it was rather popular for a time in the 20th century, with one notable example being the fittingly named Kaywoodie All Briar. This one from Butz-Choquin is a unique rendition of such a pipe, taking the form of a billiard whose briar stem is inserted straight into the mortise, in an almost army mount style. The briar itself—on both the bowl and the stem—is high quality, too, with bird’s-eye lighting up each of its flanks under a light, natural finish.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, having come to us via a large new old stock lot from a shop closure in Europe. There’s a couple of very small, superficial scratches on the bowl, but nothing major by any measure. It is chambered to allow for the use of 9mm filters if desired.

 

Details:

Length: 6.0″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.59″ / 40.39mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 44g