What are Quality French Estates?

[OzPiper]

If French makes their pipes like their beer, I'll pass.

I'd take their wine over the beer any day
The best cup of coffee I ever had in France was made by an Aussie barista

 

[milk]

I spent a few weeks on an Island in Thailand with a bunch of people from various places. One was a Scottish guy named William who had a house in France. He’s a restorer of old dwellings. He said something like, “it’s always a rainy day in the minds of the French.”

 

[Hillcrest]

If French makes their pipes like their beer, I'll pass. If French pipes are like their women, I'll buy them a case of Bic razors. Or was that the Italian women.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

Jean Lacroix likely made pipes in several price and quality grades, but I have a Lacroix Cardinal lovat with zero fills and a very nice hand cut (so stamped) bit. Great smoker

 

[burleybreath]

Jean Lacroix likely made pipes in several price and quality grades, but I have a Lacroix Cardinal lovat with zero fills and a very nice hand cut (so stamped) bit. Great smoker

I've got four or five Diamants--can't remember exactly. My best smoking pipe ever was a Jean Lacroix. Didn't matter what I smoked in it. As fate would have it, I lost it somewhere in the Adirondacks.

 

[woodsroad]

They have a number of brands that are good smokers, but American buyers just don't seem to like them despite these qualities,

Au contraire, mon ami!

 

[Sobrbiker]

But when the English started focusing on making high-end stuff in the prewar and postwar decades of the 20th century, there must have been specific French competition? Maybe the French market was just more complicated to understand.

Or the working age male class was decimated post the war to end all wars….

 

[dingdong]

Jean Lacroix, St Claude, Biarritz 225 , 70s i think or early 80s.
very nice and very light pipe, and good briar since even with smooth and thin walls, smokes pretty cool.

 

[Alejo R.]

I’ve spent the last year getting into pipe-smoking. Like some people ‘round these parts, I love looking at pipes, especially at estate pipes, and I own a few (but not many). After spending every day studying pipes (for fun), I feel like I know who made great English, American, Italian, and Danish pipes and how to spot them. I must admit, though, that French pipes perplex me. There are these huge brands (and the smaller ones) that made so many pipes over the decades and the last century. Chacom and Butz-Choquin made a bijillion pipes starting in the 1800s. But I really don’t understand what are the quality French pipes, who made them and when. I mean I look at French pipes and can see some are quite nice, but I find it hard to find out about who made what and when and how to know what is what. I wonder if anyone can explain how to understand the history of French pipe making, how to approach this question. In England, you can go back to certain brands at certain times and say they were making the best and date pipes at least to a range. What about France?

French pipe makers never focused on a portion of the market because their specialty was the standardization and mechanization of pipe manufacturing in large quantities. Therefore each brand has sublime pipes and pipes that are embarrassing. You have to learn what characteristics a good pipe has and analyze it without looking at the brand.

 

[captainsousie]

I'd second the French GBD suggestion.

 

[LongIslandPiper]

Comoy/jean lacroix/Ropp/Genod in that order

 

[runscott]

I would tell you, but then I'd have competition.

 

[dPero]

I have Chacom, Graco and BC all great smokers for just 20something€

 

[runscott]

Since I can't afford to buy any more, and you asked about French estates, I'll suggest you look at any pre-1940 J.Sommer pipe - especially the meerschaums if you smoke them. The older ones are things of beauty. If you think all amber is generally alike, you'll change your mind when you handle one of theirs. The top left and bottom right ones are both 1880's. I don't have a group shot of mine, so here is a collage, excluding the carved briar Vercingetorix ones:

 

[kcghost]

Over on pipedia.org they must have a list of 250+ carvers/firms who manufactured pipes in France. So, there is no shortage of pipes of French out there.

 

[sablebrush52]

These look like quality French Estates:

10 of the best French properties money can buy

From chateaux to Parisian apartments with views of the Eiffel Tower, here are 10 of the best French properties on the market right now. 1. Carlux,

www.countryandtownhouse.com

 

[jguss]

These look like quality French Estates:

10 of the best French properties money can buy

From chateaux to Parisian apartments with views of the Eiffel Tower, here are 10 of the best French properties on the market right now. 1. Carlux,

www.countryandtownhouse.com

But these are all sold. Just like you to buy something and then wave it in our faces.