193. Irish Seconds and the Importance of Gateway Pipes
When Peterson began exporting their Irish Seconds for the first time last year through Smokingpipes.eu, most of the rest of the pipe-smoking world may have thought this was something new, when in fact it’s a practice that goes back to the very beginning of Kapp & Peterson’s history. Back when every town and city had a tobacconist, “basket pipes” were commonplace, and in fact my first pipe purchase was a no-name blocky Italian oom paul basket pipe. When I was a teenager and worked at a drugstore after school on week nights, we had “board” pipes behind the counter—cardboard displays with holders for Kaywoodie, Medico, Dr. Grabow and Missouri Meerschaum pipes. Across the Atlantic, Kapp & Peterson maintained a trade route route Ireland as late as the 1980s, as Harry Whelan, who was the route manager and sometimes on the road himself, relates in The Peterson Pipe: The Story of Kapp & Peterson. They stocked tourist boutiques, sporting goods stores and likely merchants with Peterson-branded pipes, but also supplied newsstands and hardware shops with non-Peterson branded “Irish Seconds,” mounted on boards. These had several stamps over the years, beginning with my favorite—DUMMIES—and then went on to IRISH SECONDS, REJECT and ERICA SYSTEM REJECT. A "Dummies" from the Irish Free State era During the 1980s, Hollco-Rohr imported Irish Seconds and the Erica System Reject to the US. But by the time Tom Palmer, CEO of the company during the Dublin era (1991-2018) took over, he reversed that policy in his determination to restore prestige to the brand, believing such pipes would cast a negative light on the company, which has always exported the vast majority of their pipes. To this, former Tinder Box owner Doug Owens adds, "We sold the Irish Seconds at our Tinderbox in Portland in the early 1980’s for $8.95 a piece. The briar was pretty "iffy" and I recall several burnouts coming back at us after the customer had smoked the pipes only a few times. Those seconds were pretty sub standard and that is probably why Palmer stayed away from [exporting] them." In the summer of 2018, Laudisi Enterprises bought Peterson and by the fall of 2019 their Smokingpipes.eu site began marketing a new iteration of Irish Seconds to any and all comers. These are considerably different in quality from the board pipes sold in previous eras and a great addition to the aspirational tiers so fundamental to Peterson’s long-standing business philosophy. An Irish Seconds "3" with nickel mount [XL315 System Standard] Graded at 1, 2 or 3, and currently priced at €98 / $114 for a 1, € 69.11 / $80 for 2 and €57 / $66 for a 3, the pipes are taken from standard production lines which don’t for one reason or another meet quality control standards. They are stamped IRISH SECONDS over a 1, 2 or 3: What’s more, the 1s and 2s I’ve seen are all sterling-mounted: A "2" sterling army mount [X220] As the classic “impoverished academic” and then…