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Long as Tobacco’s mild perfume
Shall scent each happy curate’s room,
Oft as in elbow-chair he Smoaks,
And quaffs his ale and cracks his jokes
So long, C. Peterson, shall last thy praise,
Crown’d with Tobacco-leaf for bays;
And whosoe’er thy brand shall see
Shall fill another Pipe to thee.*

The PPN Pipe of the Year is ready for ordering—

Cobble finish, 8B DeLuxe PPN Pipe of the Year

Price.

Retail for Smokingpipes.com  is $240.00 before the usual 20% discount, making the pipe $192. But wait—there’s more (see—no exclamation point). If you have the VIP Silver Discount of 5%, that makes the final price $180.P

Pricing for Smokingpipes Europe will be €192.50 at Irish VAT rates.

I know Jonathan Fields, Factory Manager, is justifiably proud of the number of shank stamps he managed to fit onto such a small stamping area! It boggles the mind.

Serialization.

This year’s pipe is limited to 120 pieces, a numerologically significant number found in K&P’s frequent use of 12s and multiples of 12s in factory production and in shipping for many decades and in special releases up until around 2018.

 Ordering.

The 9mm option is available; please specify on the Google order form.

If living in the US, be aware that ordering from SPEu will incur a tariff of about 18% because of the elimination of the de minimus exemption for packages mailed to the US, known in some circles as “the Trump Tax.” This is collected by An Post (Ireland’s postal service) and your package will not be sent to you until you pay the tariff (I know because this has already happened to me).

If you want one of these fantastic pipes, fill out the Google Form below.  This form is time-stamped.

When the pipes are available, those eligible will receive a code from me to make their single purchase. Only one pipe is available for each purchaser this year.

If there should be more than 120 requests, #121 and forward will be placed on a waiting list and notified approximately two weeks after the pipes have been made available at SPC and SPEu.

GOOGLE ORDER FORM

Reflections on Smoking A Small De Luxe System.

My understanding and appreciation for the small System pipes has been very slow in coming. In fact, it’s really only since around 2020 that I began to reflect seriously on what they can do.  Like many pipemen, I supposed they (1) simply looked too small. I also thought (2) they wouldn’t take me through an entire evening’s smoking session—which for me is 2 – 2 ½ hrs. Smoking flakes also seemed (3) more difficult. And then (4) I also believed (and still do, with some Peterson shapes) that anything this small couldn’t smoke really well.  Well, it turns out I was wrong on all counts.

Approximate Measurements and Other Details

Length: 5.375 in. / 136.5 mm.
Weight: 1.60 oz./46.0 g.
Bowl Height: 1.81 in./46.0 mm.
Chamber Depth: 1.40 in./ 36.6 mm.
Chamber Diameter: 0.72 in./ 18.2 mm.
Outside Diameter: 1.17 in. / 29.7 mm.
Stem: Glorious Vulcanite P-Lip
Filter: Standard w/Condenser or 9mm
Shape: Small Dutch
Finish: Cobble

1906 8B: This was the first catalog appearance—I love this original “rainbow” stem bend, sometimes seen on Standard System A stems in the 1980s and 90s. It reproduces the Golden Ratio or Golden Spiral (see Post #297), which is what makes the curve from the bottom of the bowl to the P-Lip tip so compelling. How did Charles Peterson know this and later generations forget?

 (1) As for the look, I suppose all pipe smokers go through phases and periods where a pipe seems too large or too small, too heavy or too light. I was, from the start, drawn to the 313, and had two beautiful ones (as 363s)—one with Carving Shamrocks and one with an amazing rustication. After giving those away (one tear for each), I lucked into getting another, this time as a spigot. That spigot encouraged me to go on to add a few 20s DeLuxe Systems and another 313 spigot.

(2a) Then there’s the length of a smoking session. It was Shane Ireland who taught me that a small chamber doesn’t have to mean a shorter evening’s smoke. In fact, he said he’s been known to smoke 3 bowls back to back in his 303. So encouraged, I ventured out. Yes, he’s right: you can smoke more than one bowl in the same pipe, back-to-back, although the reservoir needs swabbing between smokes.

(2b) But there’s something more: there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between a chamber’s volume and the smoking time.  What I mean is that the chamber of a shape 4, while larger in area than an 8, doesn’t actually smoke all that much longer.  Even an 02, I’ve noticed, doesn’t seem to smoke a great deal longer than an 8.  I haven’t done any start-and-stop “scientific observation,” it just seems that way to me based on countless bowls.  Someone want to explain this to me?

K&P has offered the Small System in three shapes since the beginning, seen here in the 1948 distributor’s chart, which marked the 2^nd appearance of an 8B in the ephemera.

(3) Smoking flake tobaccos in a small chamber became a non-issue as soon as I remembered to rub out the flake a bit more and make sure I wasn’t try to pack too much in at once—which always results for me in not getting it to the bottom of the chamber.

(4) Having said all this, the look, smoking time, and difficulty of a flake-packing a small System mean nothing at all if it doesn’t smoke well. And that brings me to the most important discovery: a small De Luxe System smokes (for me) outstandingly well.  Far more than the Standard–which is saying something as I companion several great-smoking Standards–and even a bit better than the larger sized De Luxe System.  This quality, I’m convinced, is simply because the condenser (which is the same condenser used in every other System) goes further into the mortise than on larger Systems.  In any case, the result is a superlative smoking pipe.

The Dutch Billiard Family.

Of the four PPN Systems, three have been dutch billiards.  This, you probably know, isn’t an accident.  The dutch is the iconic Peterson System shape, made famous by the illustration of the Thinking Man icon.

The original dutch billiard shape group was comprised of 10 variations in size and stem bend.
Notice how in these 1906 illustrations the Golden Ratio is almost always observed in the stem bends.

As I see it—and I’m aware that even among Pete Geeks this is merely an opinion—the straight-sided billiard family ought all to be called “dutch” billiards owing to their historical association with the Second Boer War and with President Kruger of the Transvaal, who smoked the largest of these and had a preference for the shape.

The third and final appearance of the 8B System was in the 1955 Dublin & London catalog: the bend here is nearly non-existent.

Of the ten original Patent shapes and sizes of dutch billiards, the only one that has been continuous production since the 1896 catalog is the 8.  In addition to shape 8 (small dutch), there are three other “dutch” shapes in current production: the 4 (classic dutch), the 1 (short dutch, obviously, and not a pot), and the PUB (oversize dutch).  This not to mention the recent POY 2025, which deserves to be called a stack dutch.

Shape 8 gone under other bowl numbers, depending on its purpose—the 313 Standard and Premier, the 1313 Standard in Canada, the 363 (Standard grade bowl until the 1950s), the 73 Dunmore, and the 338 Classic Range (which was a Sub-System).

I’ve only found three illustrations of the 8B in the ephemera, in the 1906 catalog, the 1948 distributor’s chart, and the 1955 Dublin & London catalog. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mario Lubinski, who distributed Peterson in Italy and collaborated with K&P frequently, released a number of B-stem pipes in several lines, including the De Luxe System. If you look around, you can still occasionally find an 8B at an Italian dealer, like this NOS example, currently available from Bollitopipe.it. As you can see, the stem bend is identical to that on the PPN 2025 pipe:

History of the CPG Pipe.

2022: The D15B De Luxe System (edition of 80 pipes + “Chat” Brochure).

As explained in the “Chat” brochure enclosed in the box with each pipe, the 2022 D18B De Luxe System was built from the original 2015 Founder’s Edition / POY, which became the PUB System four years later in 2019.  I wanted it because I’d seen four D18B Naturals that surfaced a few years before PUB. While those had curvier bottoms, I was more than excited to get the PUB with  a B stem. It was released in an edition of 80 serialized pipes plus the “AP” or Approval pipe. You can read more about it in Post #299.

2023: The XL5BC PPN2023 (edition of 130 pipes + “Chat” Brochure).

Of the four CPG pipes, the 2023 is undoubtedly my favorite because of the fun I had collaborating with K&P on the design, followed by the joy of developing the entire Sherlock Holmes concept and story. It was my answer to the question, “What would Sherlock Holmes have asked Kapp & Peterson to make for him to carry as a field pipe?”

The back story, which I wrote up for the “Chat” brochure and then elaborated on in Post #360, caused some knitting of eyebrows and befuddlement on the part of those unaccustomed to reading the “histories” of Dr. Watson’s Great Detective. For myself and other Sherlockians, however, it added a much-needed footnote to the Canon, since we know that Sherlock Holmes did, in fact, companion several Patent Peterson Systems—how could he not, living in London at the exact time these pipes were being imported, advertised and sold through Arthur Colton (the distributor) in that great city?

2024: The 309 SPIGOT W/CONDENSER (edition of 180 pipes + “Chat” Brochure and Secret Squadron sticker).

While K&P was already planning to relaunch shape 4 in 2024, it was Sykes Wilford’s early kindness that paved the way for the 2024 CPG Pipe of the Year, not only as a Premier Spigot, but one with a condenser. I don’t understand why Spigot Systems don’t routinely have a condenser, but they don’t. This release marked the highpoint in the blog’s 10^th anniversary celebrations, despite the friction that arose when only 40 smooth could be offered in total of something like 180 pipes. More on the release is found in Post #425.

2025: The 8B Cobble De Luxe (edition of 120 pipes; no “Chat” Brochure).

While my involvement this year was limited in the end to a “yes or no,” Glen Whelan really delivered the goods, providing the fantastic Cobble finish on a System De Luxe B, giving Pete Geeks a chance to companion a remarkably fine, wonderfully tactile pipe suitable for field or an evening at home.

Final Encomium.

One of the first pipe poems I remember running across back when I was publishing Pipeman’s Quarterly in the 1980s was an excerpt by Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705-60). He is remembered today for A Pipe of Tobacco (1736), comprised mostly of parodies of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. The most famous, often anthologized in the late 19^th century, is “Imitation II.” He’s writing about a clay pipe, of course, but it is especially appropriate when thinking about the 8B Cobble De Luxe:

Little Tube of mighty Pow’r,
Charmer of an idle Hour,
Object of my warm Desire,
Lip of Wax, and Eye of Fire;
And thy snowy taper Waist,
With my Finger gently brac’d;
And thy swelling ashey Crest,
With my little Stopper prest;
And the sweetest Bliss of Blisses,
Breathing from thy balmy Kisses.
Happy thrice and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy Men;
Who when again the night returns,
When again the Taper burns;
When again the Cricket’s gay
(Little Cricket, full of Play),
Can afford his Tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian Weed;
Pleasure for a Nose divine,
Incense of the God of Wine.
Happy thrice, and thrice again
Happiest he of happy Men.   

Isn’t it remarkable that even at this early date, pipe smoking was intimately connected with what Holy George MacDonald calls “sacred idleness”?  There is something here that goes deep into the heart, mind, and senses, something the good people at Kapp & Peterson make their livelihood crafting and selling.  Blessings on them and on all who smoak their pipes!

* Slightly altered from Robert Lloyd, Poems, “EPISTLE to J. B. Esq. 1757,” (1762)

Thanks to Glen Whelan at Kapp & Peterson
for bringing about this project.

JOSHUA SHERIF CPG sends photos of the very first 132 System Apple I’ve ever seen in the wild. Just beautiful–

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THEWELSHFROMMOLD

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TRUEHEROISM1803 

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