Chacom

Chacom is a pipe brand produced in France's Saint-Claude region, in the Jura mountains, and it takes its name from the first syllables of its founding families' surnames (CHApuis and COMoy).

Resting on the partnership between the Chapuis and Comoy families, formalized in 1922 as the company Chapuis-Comoy, the brand is counted today among the most recognized representatives of the French pipe-making school and is known as one of the few factories still carrying on the region's pipe tradition of more than a hundred and fifty years.

The Shared History of Two Families

According to the company's official history, the Comoy family had been making pipes in the Saint-Claude region since 1825; the earliest pipes were made of boxwood, and the same history counts Napoleon's army among the buyers. The discovery of briar as a pipe material in 1856 changed the region's fate: Saint-Claude quickly became the pipe capital of the world. The details of this transformation are covered in the entry on the Briar Revolution and Saint-Claude.

Henry Comoy, whose name the brand carries, was born in 1850. Taken prisoner during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and held in Switzerland, Henri Comoy laid the groundwork there for a future partnership with his Chapuis cousins. In 1879 he settled in London with his masters and founded H. Comoy & Co.; this firm went on to become Comoy's of London, one of the pioneers of the British pipe industry. The partnership between the two families was formalized in 1922, and the Saint-Claude factory took the name Chapuis-Comoy & Cie. When Henri Comoy died in 1924, management of the two factories passed to his sons Paul and Adrien; their cousins Emile and Louis Chapuis were also part of this leadership. The company thus passed to a second generation within the family.