Butz-Choquin Supermate Major Bent Billiard 1311, Undetermined Era

This archive record documents a Butz-Choquin bent billiard from the firm's Supermate Major series, carrying the shape number 1311 and entering the reference collection as a French estate pipe. The bent billiard is among the most enduring forms in the canon: a cylindrical bowl of classical billiard proportion set upon a shank and stem that curve downward, shifting the pipe's weight toward the hand and jaw and giving the smoker a lower, more relaxed carry than the straight version of the same shape. The 'Major' designation within a maker's catalogue conventionally signals a larger rendering of a standard form, and the four-digit shape number reflects the systematic numbering that French factories applied across their production lines. Butz-Choquin itself occupies a central place in the history of French pipe making. The company's output spans a wide range of named series, of which Supermate is one, each identified by line stamping on the shank alongside the shape number. Dating a Butz-Choquin pipe is a matter of inference rather than decoding: the firm did not employ a factory date-code system comparable to those of certain English or Danish makers, so era assignment rests on the style of the stampings, the characteristics of the line in question, and documentary comparison with period catalogues. On the evidence presently recorded — the owner's identification and the model and shape designations — this example is bracketed only broadly within Butz-Choquin's long Saint-Claude production, and the record leaves finer placement to future comparison of its stampings against documented series chronologies.