P. Caprez Lausanne - London Made ? Who knows anything?

[Abuzer]

Hey Folks,

I aquired a nice little pipe on eBay a while back and finally came to cleaning it up.

Whilst cleaning it up, I tried to find something about the Brand. Caprez seems to have been a Tobacco Shop/Merchant in Lausanne/France that has shut down a few years ago. So the pipe is most likely made in England for him - but by whom?

I am not able to decifer the markings on the silver band, nor could I derive information from the stampings.
If any of you might know something about the great House in London that made this really good smoking pipe, I'd love to know.

Also the proportions seems weird - maybe the mouthpiece is not the Original one. I don't know, if anyone of you knows, I'd love if you shared.

 

[jguss]

Comoy

 

[ssjones]

Fist - very helpful photos!

I do not recognize that COM or shape number - the only 306 I know is a vastly different Peterson shape.

Jguss might chime in with some brand info.

Cool find and again, great pictures - we get these requests here and often have say get some detailed pix!

 

[ssjones]

Comoy

Jon was apparently sleeping in this AM - what took you so long?

The shape threw me, Comoy doesn't have a 306, but that football COM did look similar

Thanks, as always!

 

[jguss]

The 306 was the army mount prince ; the "c" designated a slight (in this case 1/8) bend to the stem.

 

[jguss]

The shape threw me, Comoy doesn't have a 306, but that football COM did look similar

Not every catalog lists every shape Al, in fact nowhere near it. When Neil and I did the Comoy book many years ago we consulted every catalog we could find to develop a more comprehensive shape chart (which I'm sure still omitted scores if not more of the various shapes the company made over time). The 306 appears in a shape catalog issued in the Fall of 1951; here is an announcement of the catalog's publication from the October 1951 issue of Tobacco. Note that I'm not saying the OP's pipe was made in the early fifties; just that this is evidence that 306 was a Comoy shape number:



I only have a partial copy of the catalog in question, and in the form of a very bad xerox at that. Still, here is a page showing some of the princes made by Comoy at that time, and also showing that the "c" a the end of a shape number denotes a slight bend in the stem:



And here is the relevant page that shows the 306. The lack of a "c" here is intriguing and suggests to me either a mistake or perhaps more likely that the 306 only came with this stem at the time the catalog was issued:



In any case this information, taken together, explains why I believe the OP's pipe is a Comoy. With a little googling you can find a few other Comoys with the 306 stamp.

 

[Abuzer]

Thanks a lot!
I would never ever have figured it would be a Comoys 306 - but it seems to be.

Thanks a lot for being here on this forum and providing information no AI or search engine can generate! That's also why Forums are superior to social media....

Do you think my mouthpiece is the Original one, or is it a younger replacement?

I actually love this little pipe, but it smokes horribly. I got it with a few other pipes from the same seller and they all taste, as if a bottle of perfume was broken over them. However much I ream and air them, the taste does not dissapear. Neither Alcohol, nor Salt, nor Chloride to the trick so far.... It's a shame.

 

[kcghost]

Well, it is frequently said of buying used pipes through eBay that "you pays your money and you take your chances".

 

[orlandofurioso]

Thanks a lot!
I would never ever have figured it would be a Comoys 306 - but it seems to be.

Thanks a lot for being here on this forum and providing information no AI or search engine can generate! That's also why Forums are superior to social media....

Do you think my mouthpiece is the Original one, or is it a younger replacement?

I actually love this little pipe, but it smokes horribly. I got it with a few other pipes from the same seller and they all taste, as if a bottle of perfume was broken over them. However much I ream and air them, the taste does not dissapear. Neither Alcohol, nor Salt, nor Chloride to the trick so far.... It's a shame.

Fill the bowl with granulated activated carbon and saturate it with a good quality grain alcohol.
Let it be untill the alcohol is evaporated entirely and dump the carbon. You'll be grand.
Lovely pipe, good wood. Thank you for posting good pictures.

 

[jguss]

Thanks a lot for being here on this forum and providing information no AI or search engine can generate! That's also why Forums are superior to social media....

Do you think my mouthpiece is the Original one, or is it a younger replacement?

You're welcome, and I appreciate your comment. Even today there is much that's simply not available online. My research, for example, leans heavily on historical documents that haven't seen the light of day in decades or more.

I'm sure others will chime in but my personal belief is that the stem is a replacement.

 

[Abuzer]

Fill the bowl with granulated activated carbon and saturate it with a good quality grain alcohol.
Let it be untill the alcohol is evaporated entirely and dump the carbon. You'll be grand.
Lovely pipe, good wood. Thank you for posting good pictures.

Thanks for the tip - I never thought of activated charcoal to do that. I'll try and hope.

 

[captainsousie]

Thanks for the tip - I never thought of activated charcoal to do that. I'll try and hope.

Make sure to clean the mortise too. That's where a lot of ghosts like to hide.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

Thanks for the tip - I never thought of activated charcoal to do that. I'll try and hope.

I used this charcoal with denatured alcohol to clean a Gourd Calabash based on some tips by @georged :

Amazon.com

 

[Abuzer]

Make sure to clean the mortise too. That's where a lot of ghosts like to hide.

Allready did. I reamed it down to the wood, drilled it open to 4 mm and there's no gunk left in the pipe. I cleaned it with Alcohol, Qtips, pipecleaners etc. until all got out fresh white and clean - and still it's ghosted....

I just soaked it in alcohol with charcoal, we'll see
Alcohol and salt did fail so far.

 

[captainsousie]

Allready did. I reamed it down to the wood, drilled it open to 4 mm and there's no gunk left in the pipe. I cleaned it with Alcohol, Qtips, pipecleaners etc. until all got out fresh white and clean - and still it's ghosted....

I just soaked it in alcohol with charcoal, we'll see
Alcohol and salt did fail so far.

Glad to hear you know to do that. The only other idea I have is to build an ozone box and hit it with an ozone machine for a few hours.

 

[OzPiper]

Make sure to clean the mortise too. That's where a lot of ghosts like to hide.

^^^^
Most of my pipes are estates
The rank flavours usually reside in the mortise and shank rather than the chamber

It seems like the previous owner of those pipes was a devotee of Lakelands
I’ve been fortunate not to have had Lakeland ghosts infest any of my pipes so far

I’m with @jguss - the stem looks to be a replacement

 

[Abuzer]

Glad to hear you know to do that. The only other idea I have is to build an ozone box and hit it with an ozone machine for a few hours.

I actually thought about that, lol - but it seems a bit far fetched to aquire such a thing for a cheap estate pipe.

If the active charcoal won't work, I'll ask around in some German Forums. Maybe somebody has ozone and would be so generous to clean my pipe, if I sent it over.

It's no Lakelandghosting however, as I know these and produce them myself. It's just a terrible perfumy odor hiding everywhere, even in the stems - but chloride did the trick there.

 

[ssjones]

Not every catalog lists every shape Al, in fact nowhere near it. When Neil and I did the Comoy book many years ago we consulted every catalog we could find to develop a more comprehensive shape chart (which I'm sure still omitted scores if not more of the various shapes the company made over time). The 306 appears in a shape catalog issued in the Fall of 1951; here is an announcement of the catalog's publication from the October 1951 issue of Tobacco. Note that I'm not saying the OP's pipe was made in the early fifties; just that this is evidence that 306 was a Comoy shape number:

View attachment 243918

I only have a partial copy of the catalog in question, and in the form of a very bad xerox at that. Still, here is a page showing some of the princes made by Comoy at that time, and also showing that the "c" a the end of a shape number denotes a slight bend in the stem:

View attachment 243919

And here is the relevant page that shows the 306. The lack of a "c" here is intriguing and suggests to me either a mistake or perhaps more likely that the 306 only came with this stem at the time the catalog was issued:

View attachment 243920

In any case this information, taken together, explains why I believe the OP's pipe is a Comoy. With a little googling you can find a few other Comoys with the 306 stamp.

Great knowledge Jon! Indeed, I have that page, I just didn't dig far enough into my stored catalog archives, I'm glad you did!

 

[ssjones]

Make sure to clean the mortise too. That's where a lot of ghosts like to hide.

BINGO! Cleaning the mortise thoroughly is critical, by my experience.

 

[jpmcwjr]

And the stem, which I cannot imagine is original to the pipe, a sweet Prince, could be harboring nasties.

Go at the mortise again by running very hot tap water down the chamber and out the shank, till it runs clear, then dry with twisted paper toweling and/or Q-tips.

I keep seeing the pipe with a slightly bent 'princely' shape.... Good find!