SPECIAL BULLETIN
Per Andy Wike at SPC:
“The 125th Anniversary Deluxe System Ruas will be available around 1:00 pm EST tomorrow at Smokingpipes.”
Usually when a new Pete drop occurs at SPE, it happens at 10am Dublin time.
Also per Andy:
“The 125th Anniversary Deluxe System Ebonys will be available later in December (We’re shooting for Tuesday, December 12).”
That’s really all the intel I have. I don’t know how many Rua DeLuxe will be on offer, although I know they will be serialized. Do be aware of the fact that this is the first time all the System shapes will have been offered with the “B” taper wear-gap stems since the mid-1950s, when they dropped out of the catalog. Even then, they were extremely scarce and had made up only a very small percentage of System production since the Irish Free State era.
Many thanks to Kapp & Peterson
and to Andy Wike at Laudisi
Safe to say …. PLIP for the TLIP!
Thanks for the info on the ebony systems. I got one of the POY Rua’s this year and although pretty, I’m not entirely in love with it. It looks rather pink and everytime I smoke it, my hand turns rua. Good luck fellow Pete Geeks on getting one that are interested, I’ll hold out for an Ebony!
I haven’t had the problem with the first Rua run pipe I have, or the Christmas SH Milverton Rua either. My Christmas Heritage finish from 2022? is a different story, it had the stain come off on my hand. I used Everclear and removed most of the stain, it just wiped off then I buffed it with carnauba. Personally I like the look better, and my hand is not turning brown when smoking it. My 2023 Christmas 53 must have had uncured stain inside the bowl, because it tasted like I was smoking varnish towards the end of the first… Read more »
Do you a photo of the pipe? That sounds nice.
To which pipe do you refer, the Christmas I “un-heritaged”?
John, I scrub out the coating when any new Peterson arrives, then scrub out the mortise with alcohol. This year’s Pete Geek pipe still has a layer of varnish around the inside top of the bowl, but it’s been scrubbed good. Perhaps I should sand it a touch?
I remove the bowl coating with warm water, clear the airway to 4mm, chamfer the tenon if it does not have a condenser and the mortise tenon gap is excessive, then taper drill the stem airway. I then swab out the shank and bowl with Everclear. A careful touch of sanding might be the ticket. I thought about it on mine, but got lazy, and with my “normal” routine I never had the varnish taste before.
A note: The pipe that tasted like varnish actually had some stain end up on my warm water dampened paper towel that I used to clear the bowl coating. That had never happened to any of my other newer Pete’s that have the new water soluble bowl coating. I don’t mind the new bowl coating because it removes easily, although a bit messy. I do hate the fact that it is used at all. Bowl coating is like makeup on clowns and mimes, you never know what’s underneath, and probably don’t want to know….scary?
I hate mimes and clowns.? ?
These are dropping on SPeu or US?
Looking forward to the drop. I’m pretty sure I will miss out. I need to actually look over the pipe pics before I purchase one. It takes too much time, generally, to partake of the feeding frenzy. I’ll go away hungry and bitter.
Sign into your account and go right to the page and search Rua. Which shape are you looking at?
I’m not sure what shape, it’s more a question of blast/grain pattern. Yep, that’s how I got one of my other special editions, I don’t recall which at the moment. I have tried it that way for the last few special drops and just don’t have time to sort through them.
You have to be quick and go by first glance and just buy it. Sometimes I look for 2 seconds and purchase it as soon as it hits the cart. If you wait and go back…. It will be gone 🙂
I can’t bring myself to do that. It’s almost as bad as buying sight-unseen…..Which I very much hate.
And….. 9 and 2 Darwins… got one extra Darwin for the team 🙂
I don’t think the feeding frenzy was that bad. I was able to get what I was looking for at SP US. The last drop of blasted Naturals was a different matter – gone at the US location quickly, but lasted quite a while at SP EU. Seems like the exact opposite situation today.
I was looking for a 9B (not sure if there were any, I didn’t see one), next up was an 11S, I love my 312 Premier, but all of the 11S’s were all “chopped up and nasty” (to the eye of this beholder anyway). I think I saw a 9S (not a favorite shape) that looked pretty good, but it went bye-bye. I ultimately settled on a tried and true 3S (I hope to heck it’s at least drilled correctly this time). The 3S/303/03 is a favorite shape for me (I probably have ~20 in different livery). I already had… Read more »
Agreed on paying same price for smaller models. No ‘9’ – only System shapes. Bringing the ‘4’ back for this run would have been sweet!
There’s 200 in the series, saw most system shapes I can think of including the smaller ones (yes!!)
Finally got my dream pipe, a craggy 12.5 with the vulcanite wear gap tapered b-stem and the RUA finish.
The SPE pictures also showed a dark red color, not like the pink POTY I got. Great work Peterson & Laudisi !
After receiving the Pete Geek 05, couldn’t resist a similar pipe in Rua. Was late to the party (recovering from COVID), but still got the one I wanted two minutes ago.
Well I told myself I wasn’t going to get one, but you know how that goes. I found a 12.5 that had nice blast and shape, and the stem taper sealed the deal. It’s AZ bound.
Is it weird that they’re using the “S” designation even though it’s not a saddle stem? Or is that just me?
No, K&P just isn’t “with the program” yet. LOL. You’ll notice they did use the “B” on our XL5BC. And the “C”! But they will have to get shank stamps made up for the 9B 11B 12.5B etc. While they have some stamps going back to the 1950s, the older, smaller number stamps are gone–probably worn out. But we all know these are “B” stems. And so do they. 🙂
Will the ebony systems be solid black smooths, or blasts I wonder
Steve, sorry for the late reply. They’re smooth.
IORA Finish just droped here in the EU . I like to ask Prof. Schantz what he thinks of the iora (CP) 53 proportion and finish.