Loewe & Co.

Loewe & Co. is an English pipe brand that grew out of the shop and workshop the French-born Emil Loewe opened on Haymarket in London in 1856. Counted among the established nineteenth-century London pipe houses, the firm is known for silver-banded spigot fittings and shape names drawn from British place names.

The Haymarket Years

The Loewe name is regularly cited in pipe literature as the first English house to work briar on a consistent basis. No independent record documents this claim; similar founding narratives also circulate around Comoy's of London and Charatan, which set up business in London in the same years, so impartial sources do not award the title to any one brand definitively. What is certain is that Loewe was among the early London workshops to switch to briar.

The brand's signature is the spigot fitting. A silver band at the end of the shank, into which the stem's tenon seats, turns the stem into a removable part. According to sources, the fitting was originally adopted with overseas customers in mind: if a stem broke, a replacement could be made and shipped as a separate piece. London assay marks on the bands remain today the most reliable basis for dating the brand.