Ma Colombe

Ma Colombe is the one-person pipe workshop of French maker Jean Masson, who signed his work with this name instead of his own surname. Records give Masson's birth date as 13 February 1934; he began making pipes in 1970, but founded the brand only in 1991. Ma Colombe is thus less a new workshop than the naming of twenty years' accumulated experience.

A Craft Learned Master to Master

Masson's first trade had nothing to do with pipemaking: he came from soldering work and learned woodworking only later, alongside masters who had come before him. According to the account, the year after he began making pipes he moved to the workshop of Jules Guichon, who worked on classic shapes; he learned the proportions of classic forms from Guichon and carving from Denis Vincent. This dual training explains the brand's later production line: measured classics on one side, free and figurative work on the other.