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Beannachtaí na Cásca oraibh!
HAPPY EASTER!

APRIL 30TH – MAY 3RD 

Brad Jarosek from the Arlington Pipe & Cigar Lounge in Arlington Heights, Illinois called me a few months ago and wanted to know if I’d be interested in doing a presentation at the shop for the March meeting of the Chicago Pipe Collectors Club.  Brad is over the pipes and tobaccos section of the store, which is owned by Chris Nichols.  The CPCC meets there every month, and meets quite comfortably–with attendance averaging between 50 and 70.  The shop is kind of like the stable in C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle–it’s a lot bigger on the inside than it looks like on the outside.

I told Brad I’d love to come, but Gigi and I were saving for our annual vacation at the CPCC show at the end of April. “No problem,” he said, my boss Chris Nichols and the club will pick up the tab.”  What could I say? Yes, of course. I love Illinois and I love Chicago.  There’s something about the people, the town, and the state that has always made me feel like I was home. More than that, if it weren’t for the CPCC’s show, I might never have landed a contract for the The Peterson Pipe. The show is where every book we’ve published has been launched, and it seemed like giving the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club an advance peek at something from my next Peterson book is the very least I could do to show them my gratitude for their friendship, hospitality, and support all these years. I don’t know if they accept members from afar, but I’ll be finding out in a few weeks.

Before heading out to the shop, I met Josh Sherif–The Peterson Piper–his friend Cole Bonifacius, and Amu Torres, Laudisi’s Midwest rep at Wildberry Pancakes, Arlington Heights #1 purveyor of the supreme breakfast food. Brad was already at the shop, getting things ready.

Amu Torres

Amu Torres is probably the most charismatic guy I’ve ever met on the “trade” side. He’s promised an interview with me after we get through the Chicago show. He’s got a passion for pipes, but it’s more than that, it’s a genuine interest in pipe smokers. I heard him talking to several folks, drawing out their likes and dislikes. More than selling pipes, it’s about connecting pipes with other pipe smokers. I honestly don’t know anyone in the trade like him.

Codger (on the left) photo-bombing my hosts, Brad (center) and Chris (right)

I was absolutely bowled over by what Brad has done with the pipes & tobaccos section of the Arlington store. I haven’t been in a shop like this, maybe, ever.  Just look at this:

Not a bad job, right? 

Josh Sherif (left) and Cole Bonifacius (right)

Josh I’m sure you already know. His YouTube channel has almost two thousand subscribers and it seems like he puts up new content just about every week.  He, Cole and I spent no little time going over the pipes Amu brought for the trunk show. Cole found a Cobble 150 Bulldog. Josh found a smooth 2023 X160 back among Brad’s amazing stock of Petes, and by a twist of good fortune (thank you, Josh), I acquired a rusticated 2023 X160, which I’ve been looking for but never found.

Brad’s stock of tobacco is out of this world.  I found a tin of Samuel Gawith’s Cabbie’s Mixture, a blend I haven’t seen on the internet in about 18 months. In addition to what has to be the most complete stock of C&D tins in a shop, Brad’s also got nearly everything that can be legally got from Samuel Gawith, Gawith & Hoggarth, and lots of others. I can’t be sure, but it looked like Presdident of the club Tim Garrity (he and I wear the same Celtic sun cross, only his was given him by his Grandmother at his confirmation) was picking a few, er hum, tins nobody ever sees. But Tim’s secret is safe with us, right? In a club of hard workers, his work at the Chicago show seems to begin before dawn and extend until he boots us out of the smoking tent at well after midnight (true story). He has a lovely accomplice, by the way, which is probably why he’s always got the dreamy look of someone who lives in paradise. I guess it could be the tobacco he smokes, but probably… nah.

My stash from the meeting

At some point we headed to the other end of this huge shop and settled in some of the dozens and dozens of leather pub chairs for the business of pipes, tobaccos, and pipe talk.  There I met Josh and Cole’s friend Mikey Rinaldo, proprieter of NewMathCoffee.com.

Mikey Rinaldo and Brian Turnbull

Mikey does wholesaling as well as e-sales at NewMathCoffee.com, and sent me home with a bag of Columbia Urbania.  Coffee is as crucial throughout the day for me as IPA and Stouts are at the end, but I wasn’t prepared for just how good his coffee is and ordered two pounds when I got home. Mikey is a walking encyclopedia on many subjects (Ph.D in Comparative Lit), so I got to question him closely on mistakes I’ve been making with my French Press pot and my Bialetti Moka Pot.

By 5 o’clock or so, the shop had filled to capacity and folding chairs were being borrowed from a business next store. I don’t know if the catering is done by the same restaurant every month, but the Italian sandwiches we had were just what I needed before giving my presentation on System engineering.

Without Gigi there to help me with tech, I decided to forgo the usual slideshow stuff, which might have been difficult to synch on all the shop’s monitors anyway. So I went low tech and hand-printed a little chapbook with illustrations of the images accompanying the presentation. You see the presentation, by the way, on Josh’s Peterson Piper. Not the illustrations, unfortunately. I created all of them aside from an illustration of a 1937 demonstrator System, but since I did not ask Peterson for permission to put that image on YouTube, I thought I’d better just keep it for the book, where its intent as an educational piece will be covered.  And as you’re a serious Pete Geek, I think you’ll be able to follow me with no problems.

After the presentation, I got to speak with Jamie Connelly, an incredibly knowledgeable pipeman I’d met at the Chicago Show many times. Jamie showed me something that is flat out unbelievable: what has to be the world’s largest collection of bone condensers and stingers–all unsmoked–all dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.

As we talked, Jamie also told me he’s got a number of P-Lip vulcanite stems, and if you’re looking one, you can drop him an email.

I can’t tell you just how much like home it felt being with guys like Chip Frederick (above), who has promised to drop by on his next visit to see his daughter who lives in a town not far from mine. I think Chip showed me this Prince 407, but I can’t remember. It’s stamped Meerschaum Lined:

Craig Hairrell, whom I met at the very first Chicago we attended back in 2011 and who owns one of the few first year POYs I’ve ever seen, brought two very rare meer-lined Pete briars from the Iwan Reis era in the late 1970s with the Laxiom interchangeable stems. Here’s the pot:

You can see how these worked, with the tenon as a bridge between the stems. What we couldn’t figure out was why the link connected to the tenon on one pipe and the mortise on the other.  Super cool.

I can tell you where I’d be every single month if I lived near Chicago: at the CPCC meeting.  If you’re ever in the vicinity, you’ve got to go.

Photos courtesy Amu Torres, Chip Frederick, Josh Sherif, Chas Mundungus.
Thanks to everyone at the meeting for their hospitality.

…and many, many thanks to Brad Jarosek for going far above and beyond
to take care of me while I was in Chicago, rising in the middle of the night (almost)
to get me to the airport. And for introducing me to his lovely wife Geneva, who drove well out of her way to drop by.

...and thanks also to my buddy Josh Sherif, The Peterson Piper, for hanging out with me all day
and introducing me to his circle of friends.

Amu Torres cleared up a problem that’s been bothering me for months concerning the B5, one of the original B shapes that appeared c. 1998 and that is rarely seen anymore, although a few pop up from time to time. While a number of artisans make this shape, which I’d classify as a squat dublin, doesn’t predate all the ones by Danish and other artisans. It makes sense, right?

While the whole idea of a squat dublin made by K&P is awesome, that’s not what I was trying to nail down, which has to do with the shaping changes since 1998.  I recently went so far as to buy a DeLuxe Terracotta B5, HM 2025, but as is so often the case with internet photos, when it got to me I was disappointed to realize that it’s not the original shape. I’ve even disagreed with people at K&P over the difference (they say there’s been no change). But here’s the visual evidence:

This B5 pictured above is the first iteration of the shape. I offered Amu a zillion dollars for it (it’s his), but he when he said “Show me the money,” I had nothing to show.  Anyway, notice the visual distance from the upper bead line on the bowl. And how very flat in appearance it is.

This second (current) Harp iteration, you can see, has a larger “hat,” that area above the double bead line. And it’s not as squat, not as flat.

This 2025 SPD is very close to Amu’s original.  Hard to tell since it’s been sandblasted.  But it still doesn’t have the same “flat hat” as the original. Notice the diamond shank halts right where the rear bowl line descends, sandblasted away. Still, the photo doesn’t do it justice.

This current DeLuxe Terracotta B5, HM 2025, doesn’t display the same “flat hat” as the Harp at all. It’s certainly the most elegant of the four, partially because of the sweep of the P-Lip but also because the diamond shank line is different from the others, moving up to the the front of the bowl and cutting so beautifully into the back of the bowl (is that called the “cheeking”?). It’s a long ways, however,  from the original B5.

[CATCH & RELEASE:
If anyone wants either of these incredible B5s, I’m not putting them on eBay until tomorrow. Now that my research is done, I’d like to see them go to a great home. I smoked 1 bowl in the SPD on St. Patrick’s Day with the South India Pipe Club; the DeLuxe is unsmoked.
The SPD is $95; the Terracotta Deluxe $175. Add $10 for shipping, PayPal to mark@afinemess.org.
You should inquire before sending $. ]

ESPRESSO CUP & SAUCER.

I also ended up with far more of these beautiful black & gold espresso cups & saucers than even I can break in a lifetime, even with Winston (the 5 month old Velociraptor impersonating an Aussie puppy who has learned to counter cruise very, very quickly) on duty. That being the case, I think I can let of two of them go and still be able to serve most of the guys at the Chicago Pipe club meeting on any given morning. They’re $25, new in box, +$10 shipping. These continue the black & gold ceramic accessories of the late 1990s, which included a single pipe rest, a 3 pipe rest, and a beautiful shop ashtray. Absolutely a must have. They hold 4 oz, or a double shot. Of course, if you’re like some folks I met at the Chicago show (hmm, no names, boys) you could pour a double shot of your favorite brown liquid in them, nobody the wiser. Or would that be a quad shot?

Clint Stacey CPG achieved one of those dreams he and I have shared for a number of years, recently acquiring not one but two Patents:

The little army mount apple is HM 1919, while the House pipe is HM 1900.

Intellectual property of Kapp & Peterson
reproduced with their gracious permission.

PPN will return April 19th.

Tá Críost éirithe!