Chapuis-Comoy

Chapuis-Comoy is a French pipe factory carrying the names of two related families from the Saint-Claude region, and it still produces today. The company's best-known product is the Chacom brand, whose name is drawn from the first syllables of the CHApuis and COMoy surnames. The family's branch on the other side of the Channel operated as a separate company, under the name Comoy's of London.

Founding and the Merger of Two Families

The company's official history traces the start of the business to 1825, to production the Comoy family carried on in Avignon near Saint-Claude. The dominant material at the time was not briar but boxwood; the products are also said to have been sold to soldiers in Napoleon's army. Briar bowls made their way into Saint-Claude's workshops in the 1850s, and the Comoy name is counted among the pioneers of that shift.

The partnership between the two families is, according to the story handed down, traceable to Henri Comoy's (1850-1924) meeting with his Chapuis relatives, who did the same work in Switzerland, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. The idea of a partnership was only put into practice after the First World War: Chapuis-Comoy & Cie was founded in 1922. After Henri Comoy's death, the company was run by his sons Paul and Adrien, alongside their cousins Emile and Louis Chapuis; the Chacom brand, registered in 1928, quickly became the backbone of the business.