Chacom: Pipe of the Year 2024 Smooth (728/1245) (9mm) Tobacco Pipe

The Chacom story began in 1825, when the Comoy family crafted boxwood pipes for soldiers in Napoleon's army near Saint-Claude, France, long before the discovery of briar as a material for pipe making. In the mid to late 19th century, it was the Comoys, with their cousins, the Chapuis family, who introduced briar pipes to the world, writing a new chapter in the history of tobacco smoking. Known today as Chacom, a combination of Chapuis and Comoy, the venerable French marque continues its legacy of innovation while preserving its timeless traditions, offering quality pipes for smokers of all persuasions.

Since 1978, Chacom has produced a Pipe of the Year, selecting a single shape each year to showcase the talent of the French marque's craftsmen and presenting it in limited quantities across a variety of finishes. For 2024, Chacom's pipe of the year is this robust, high-kicking bent Brandy, a silhouette boasting impressive dynamism throughout. The transition is wide enough to drape a digit, and it gives way to a rather short, sharply curved shank that reaches out to meet a smartly curved half-saddle stem of genuine cumberland at an aluminum junction band engraved with "2024" in the center. The stem itself is unique, being drilled to accept 9mm filters, but coming complete with an adapter that can also work with a stinger or be used by itself. This shank and stem nicely balance the presence of the bowl, one whose lower flanks showcase ample curvature as the low-set waistline here gives way to an arcing taper to the rim. The shank's pairing to the bowl adds a touch more curvature and understated musculature to this piece, its underside displaying a pronounced bow toward the aft side to coincide with the implied lines of the shank. This particular iteration of the shape is dressed in a warm, rich stain, revealing plenty of handsome grain to appreciate, and it's numbered out of 1245 total examples.