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After a hiatus of some fourth months—back to bulldogs! You may recall in Post #388 the auspicious beginnings of this so-very-English shape in the K&P catalog, of Tom Crean’s very own Peterson Coronation CAD bulldog and of King Edward VII’s note to Alfred Kapp after the royal visit to the Irish International Exhibition of 1907.

In Post #390 we went on to explore the Peterson bulldogs of the final years of the Patent era and those of the Irish Free State and Éire eras as well.  All of which brings us to that great stretch of Peterson history known as the Republic Era, which stretches from 1948 through 1990 and has been is subdivided for us as Pete Geeks into Early (1948-1968) and Late (1969-1990). We did this for two reasons, neither of which has to do with a decline in the quality of K&P pipes—an assertion still maintained by the uninformed on the internet, blogs and eBay.  No, the dating by eras which my co-author Gary Malmberg and I decided on for the big Peterson book, is primarily a convenience to help in dating individual pipes by their stamps. It’s also to make a forty year era in K&P’s history more manageable for collectors, as shapes came and went. Finally, it’s a great division since hallmarking was resumed by the company in 1969.

Looking at the existing catalog ephemera reveals a distinct sea change from the Early Republic to The Late Republic, with much less change afterwards in the Dublin and Laudisi eras, which will be dealt with together next time.

From the London Times, 2 December 1949: the “Peterson Pipe is A Good Pipe” ad campaign actually started in 1945, but was still being used in 1950 at the beginning of the Early Republic era.

With the cessation of hostilities in Europe on VE Day (May 25, 1945), I’m sure every pipe maker got busy sourcing briar to supply the world’s long-felt need for pipes, Kapp & Peterson being no exception.  In late 1945, K&P issued the the “Red” catalog brochure, their first since 1940, and would follow it with the Distributor’s Catalog of 1947 and the “White” catalog brochure in1950, a reprint of the 1945. In between, they launched their first ad campaign in a very long time: “”Give Him A Good Pipe,” with its tagline “a Peterson pipe is a good pipe,” which appeared in newspapers and even in women’s magazines. What’s fascinating is to see that the strutcard chosen for tobacconist’s counters featured a DeLuxe bulldog. The Early Republic, as we’re about to see, was the bulldog’s age nonpareil.

The beautiful 1953 pipe box brochure

1953 Rogers Brochure WEB

The first thing the catalogs reveal is that the Early Republic era was the time of the greatest popularity of this shape. If you glance at the banner image and the beautiful 1953 Rogers Imports pipe box brochure (which you can download below) you’ll see why: here is the quintessential Peterson bulldog, with its sweeping tapered diamond shank moving down to the P-Lip, which perfectly complements the twin cones of the bulldog bowl, in fact, being a fairly accurate 90 degree juxtaposition of its lines.

If you look to the shape chart on the left side of the column, you’ll see four bulldogs: the 493 “squat Cad,” the 150 (with a much better looking saddle, in my opinion, than current production), the 155, and the 80s bent bulldog.* All of these were already in the shape chart, of course, the 155 simply being a different stem configuration than the 150.

The Genin, Trudeau & Cie Canadian catalog for 1951

Backing up two years, we see the GT&C Canadian catalog’s opening photo of four Petersons devoting 50% of that space to bulldogs—the 150 and 80s—25% to the “Irish” billiard (aka Dublin) and 25% to the “English” billiard.

Rogers Imports Ltd catalog for 1953

Moving back to 1953, Rogers Imports Ltd big catalog devotes a third of its six display pipes to the bulldog, rivaled only by the third devoted to the “Irish” bulldog.

The 1955 Dublin & London catalog (with Junior Bulldog superimposed)

The comprehensive 1955 Dublin & London catalog at first seems to reveal thirteen bulldogs, or is it only seven?  It depends on the way you want to reckon them up. What I mean is this: would you say a 4s DeLuxe System is the same shape as a 309 or not? You see the ambiguity. The bowl is the same, the mount is not. Are these two shapes or one?  The argument for thirteen bulldogs rests on the belief that a different mount indicates a different shape. Thus, the 150 Large Saddle Bulldog and the 155 Large Bulldog would be different. They use the same bowl, true, but one is a saddle and one a taper.

The “SPORTS” 5 Bulldog
(alone among the “SPORTS” pipes, the 5 Bulldog has a full-sized P-Lip, albeit on a stubby stem, making it extremely comfortable to smoke)

When I says “comprehensive,” even with such a large catalog as the D&L 1955, what I really mean is larger than most.  The shape 5 “SPORTS” bulldog, for example, is not seen here, although we know it was in production.

The 494 Squat Cad

Before moving on, I need to pause here to gaze in adoration on this 494 Squat Cad.  This has to be one of the most beautiful shapes to ever grace the catalog.  Sigh.  Okay—back to the show.

1955 Pipe Box Brochure

The 1955 pipe box brochure illustrates 21 Classic Range and 5 Systems. Of the Classic Range, 4, or almost 20%, are bulldogs.

1957 Rogers Imports Catalog

The big Rogers Imports Catalog for 1957 again devotes 50% of its Peterson splash page—two of the four pipes—to bulldogs, the others being the authentic John Bull Chubby and the dublin.

1965 Catalog

The period from 1955 to 1965 is another one problematic for documenting Peterson shape history in that there isn’t a single K&P catalog that has turned up—or at least, that has been shared with me. So we move an entire decade to the 1965 “Green” catalog, where we find a startling “reduction in force”—down from 17 to just 4 bulldogs. Or, if you look at it from the glass-half-empty, from 7 to 3. Either way, the bulldog looks like it’s become unfashionable and, if we dare generalize from this scanty evidence, the end of the tapered diamond shank is in sight (and in fact, it’s never come back, the current 150 being an attempt to have it both ways and succeed in neither).

1965 Meer Brochure

For our final stop on this journey through the Early Republic dogs, the 1965 meerschaum catalog shows us what we may presume are the two most popular bulldogges at that point in K&P’s sales history: the 150 saddle (and wow that’s a knife, isn’t it?) and the 80s bent.

There is no way to know, of course, whether K&P bulldogs were actually Peterson’s top-selling shape during the Early Republic, much as I heard a few years ago that the 999 is the #1 shape of recent days. Estate sales on eBay don’t help us here, since extremely popular shapes tend to get smoked and held onto, not passed along from collector to collector. My own slight anecdotal evidence would seem to support this, since I rarely see a vintage Pete bulldog, especially with tapered diamond stems like the 150 in the banner and the 494 squat cad.

Chris enjoying a Peterson 80s while playing his bodhrán

Chris Streeper CPG.  I wanted to share with you a bit about my love of bulldogs, which without a doubt comes from my grandfather Horace. He was a WWII veteran, a longtime mariner, and refinery worker. I was his first grandson to bear the family name, and I suppose because of this, we were especially close. He passed away when I was twelve years old, but I rarely remember him without a pipe in his mouth. Some of my fondest memories with him were visiting the tobacco shop before heading out to a ball game or to trail him around while he ran errands. His home had a distinct pipe smell to it, and he would smoke his pipe while we sat together to watch the Astros and Oilers on the weekends.. I suppose it’s from him that I inherited my love of pipes, flat caps, and the sea. When I turned 18, my grandmother passed down to me his pipe collection as his final birthday present to me. Included in the set of twelve pipes were the three bulldogs seen below: a meerschaum lined briar from the Tinderbox, a white 88S Kaywoodie, and blue colored “The Pipe.”

I enjoyed smoking them for a bit, but without anyone to teach me, I turned to  smoking cigars with my fraternity brothers. I dropped out of college and joined the US Coast Guard shortly before 9/11 and was fortunate enough to have an old  school, very salty, Chief Quartermaster on my first boat who was a pipe smoker. I mentioned to him that I enjoyed pipes but didn’t really know how to smoke them. He told me to bring a few along on our next deployment and he’d teach me how to smoke them properly, so I did just that. After working hours had completed, a few days a week, QMC and myself would sit out back on the fantail to enjoy a pipe together. When we got back to homeport in Seattle, I picked up my first new pipe… a Peterson 150.

Over the past twenty-some odd years I’ve built a collection of nearly 100 pipes, at least 80% of which are Petersons. The bulk of my collection consists of Peterson bulldogs, and of those, I have more 150’s than any other pipe. I love the aesthetic of a bulldog, especially one with a shouldered stem. I love the way a proper bead looks around the rim of the bowl. I enjoy the feel of the angular shank and how it smoothly transitions into a rounded shape. They also remind me of my grandfather, whose favorite pipe was that  meerschaum-lined briar from the Tinderbox.

Sláinte!

Chris Streeper

…and a few of Chris’s artisan bulldogs!

*For whatever reason, K&P traditionally referred to to the 80 as a “bent rhodesian.” With the passing of years, it has now become quite clear that a rhodesian has a round shank.

Public Service Announcement

There’s still time to snatch one of Peterson craftsman Austin Quinlan’s artisan pipes at SPC! Just two left–an amazing stubby dublin and and juicy little apple.   ‘Nuff said!

AND FINALLY THIS JUST IN . . .

John Umpherville CPG sent me this just before posting time: “Cool little Pete sighting and because of that I’m going to check the movie out after I send this email 😆 looks like a blasted 303 system standard to me!”

4.6 stars on Amazon Prime, action-comedy WWII caper based on the historical unit chartered by Winston Churchill that would become the model for the British SAS and modern black ops warfare. Oh, and did we mention there’s a Peterson pipe in it? Thank, Jon!