Butz-Choquin Old Root 150.1 St Claude Smooth Straight Pot, Vulcanite Saddle Stem

A Butz-Choquin from Saint-Claude: the script Butz-Choquin over OLD ROOT on one side of the shank, ST CLAUDE-FRANCE over 150.1 on the other, and a BC on the stem.

This is a smooth straight pot with a flat rim and a round chamber. Birdseye grain shows on the shank around the stamps. A straight black vulcanite saddle stem ends in a fishtail bit; the tenon is plain, and there is no filter.

THE MAKER
The story starts in Metz in 1858. Jean-Baptiste Choquin, a tobacconist, and Gustave Butz, his first workman, who married into the family that same year, created the CHOQUIN pipe: a bent, flat-bottomed bowl with a hollow albatross-bone mouthpiece extension held by silver rings. That model, the Origine, appears in a Nadar photograph of the painter Corot, which the firm used in its own advertising. Butz built the Metz house under the Butz-Choquin name.

Before 1951 Butz-Choquin pipes were made and sold by several makers, Berrod-Regad among them. In 1951 Berrod-Regad bought the trademark, and production moved to Saint-Claude. In 1960 the firm entered export markets (the same year is given for its Gold Cup of French good taste). Its collection grew from 10 series to 70. Jean Paul Berrod ran the company from 1969 until he retired in 2002 and sold it to Fabien Guichon, a native of Saint-Claude. In 2006 Denis Blanc, the owner of EWA, took over S.A. Berrod-Regad. The carver Paul Lanier made the Maitre Pipier series until he retired, and Alain Albuisson followed him. In the 1960s the designer Joe Colombo drew the Optimal pipes.

THE MARKS
- Butz-Choquin (script) / OLD ROOT on the left side of the shank
- ST CLAUDE-FRANCE / 150.1 on the right side of the shank
- BC on the side of the stem

This follows the usual Butz-Choquin layout: the name and the line on the left, Saint-Claude and a number on the right. An undated Butz-Choquin catalogue lists OLD ROOT among ten finishes, with Grand Luxe, Commandeur, Prelude, Granada, Bourbon, Regate, Cocarde and Sable Noir. The meaning of 150.1 is not known.

DATING
Any Saint-Claude wording on a Butz-Choquin means the pipe was made after the 1951 move to Saint-Claude; this is well documented. OLD ROOT carries no date of its own, so the window stays open from 1951 on.

Condition: pre-smoked, good condition. Please see the photographs.

THE MEASUREMENTS
- Length: 141 mm (5.55 in)
- Bowl height: 42 mm (1.65 in)
- Bowl width: 40 mm (1.57 in)
- Chamber diameter: 20 mm (0.79 in)
- Chamber depth: 36 mm (1.42 in)
- Weight: 37 g (1.31 oz)

Ships from the Faridunhill archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.

SKU: 651