Michel

The following information is courtesy of Matt Hardin:

I see that there has been some confusion about these pipes recently from the entry under “Michel” on Pipedia. Not surprising at all. This tsunami of MICHEL and MICHEL DELUXE pipes which washed ashore on eBay a few months ago all came from one enormous NOS pipe auction on HiBid.

At the time I attempted to document what I could about the auction in general, who the owner was, and some detail about the hundreds of MICHEL and MICHEL DELUXE pipes included. I placed everything I could find in this long thread at Pipe Smokers Den with the full story evolving over time: https://pipesmokersdens.com/threads/the-ultimate-nos-pipe-auction.19629/

The bottom line on those pipes is that they were named after the shop which sold them: Maison Michel of NC, owner Michel J. Mitchell. They were made by a variety of private label pipe manufacturers, most probably from the 60s-70s. Some are marked Made in England, some France, some Denmark. Michel Mitchell died in 1980 after which his sister sold the store to a bank and the entire inventory of the shop sat in storage for ~40 years.

For instance, the Michel Deluxe example bellow was apparently made for the shop by Charatan as indicated by the Charatan Logo, and MADE IN LONDON ENGLAND stamp:

• Example, courtesy Steve Kauffman, Heritage Pipe Shop, Fostoria, Ohio
• 
• 
• 

• Examples, courtesy Matt Hardin
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•