S. M. Frank & Co.

S. M. Frank & Co. is the New York-based manufacturer that, over the course of half a century, united separately born American pipe brands under a single company. What began, according to the record, as a small tobacco-accessories business opened by Sam Frank Sr. in 1900 came in time to own the Kaywoodie, Yello-Bole, Medico and Wm. Demuth lines; the firm markets itself as "America's oldest pipe house."

From Sam Frank to Medico

Sam Frank Sr. started out selling pipes and tobacco accessories, working closely in those years with the sales staff of Wm. Demuth & Co. When he needed an experienced master to run the factory he founded in the Bronx in 1919, he called on his old friend Ferdinand Feuerbach, who had served as Demuth's production manager since 1903. The business became a company in 1922 with the purchase of the Manhattan Briar Pipe Co.

The product that brought the firm to a wide audience arrived in 1933: the Medico filter, made of absorbent paper, and the pipe line carrying the same name. Medico played a part in spreading pipe filter systems across America. In 1937, when New York's city government decided to seize part of the factory's land to widen two streets, production moved to the Wm. Demuth factory in Richmond Hill, Queens; Demuth in turn became a subsidiary of S. M. Frank.