Monthly Archives: June 2014

(Pictured in the banner: shape 5 billiard from the 1937 catalog) Rick Newcombe has written a wonderful introduction for the upcoming Peterson book, which some of you may have read in Pipes & Tobaccos a few issues back. In his article, he discusses a meerschaum-lined Peterson as among his favorite Petes, which he recently sent me to photograph for the book, along with an invitation to smoke it. Rick picked up the pipe at a table at the Chicago show and told his friend Jess Chonowitsch he didn't want to buy it unless he could smoke it as a briar pipe. Rick says, "Jess studied it carefully and then finally said, 'As long as you smoke it slowly, the walls are thick enough that it will be fine.' I then sent the pipe to Jim Benjamin and asked him to remove the lining." When Rick got the pipe back he says “the inside wood looked exactly like a popsicle stick.” But instead of behaving like an unsmoked pipe, the Peterson smoked like a pipe that had already been broken in! He talked to his pipe-making friends Jess Chonowitsch and Todd Johnson about the phenomenon, who speculated that the heat transfer through the old meerschaum lining had effected this magic transformation. Here’s some of our email exchange, along with my own experience smoking it: Dear Mark, Here is the Peterson pipe that was lined with meerschaum that I talk about in the introduction for the Peterson book. It says “Made in Ireland.” Can you tell what decade by the “Petersons Dublin”? The walls are thin, so I smoke this pipe very slowly. The wood is aged & broken in. Great pipe! Best, Rick Dear Rick, Thanks for the loan of your pipe to photograph for the book. Here’s what I can tell you about it: This is Shape 5, documented in the 1937 Black & Silver K&P Catalog, p. 5. The shape number was applied only to the Deluxe line, which is confirmed by the light honey-colored finish and superb wood of your pipe as typical of K&P’s top of the line. Gary Malmberg has documented examples of the Deluxe (Classic Lines and System) pipes as early as the 1920s, although yours is not that old, for reasons explained below. The mouthpiece on your pipe was hand-cut and originally fitted with a bone extension (as per the catalog, p. 1). You can see the threads for the extension. This either disintegrated (as they sometimes did over time) or was removed and thrown away, which is a pity, since the P-Lip actually delivers a better airflow with dryer smoke with the extension. I tried to fit a new aluminum extension (or “chimney” as they’re called at the factory), but the thread pitch is different. Apparently the extensions for Classic Lines pipes were of a different gauge than the vintage System pipes, which will accommodate the new extensions. Although K&P made meerschaum-lined pipes as early as 1905 (screw-in cups for “Captain Warren” type…