SPECIAL BULLETIN
Lá na nAithreacha Sona Duit!
Happy Father’s Day!
I invite you this week to unplug from your devices, unwind from your workday cares, light your favorite Pete and join me in Peterson’s celebration of America’s Semiquincentennial on July 4th.
According to Andy Wike, the sixth and last installment of the Carroll of Carrollton Commemorative will “drop Wednesday, June 24 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on Smokingpipes.”
While I never discuss politics or religion here on the blog (!), let me make exception this morning to praise—with the qualifications due in respecting all human beings of other times—Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland. In our era of political and economic tyranny, of Autocracy, Inc. Big Pharma, Big Ag and Crapitalism (I just found out that was a word, incidentally), Carroll was something unique in American history—he was the only Irish Roman Catholic among the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence.
It’s true he was a slave-holder who wrestled unsuccessfully with his conscience all his life, himself a slave to his own wealth. And yes, he was fabulously wealthy. And yes, he was highly educated. And despite everything, a man of deep sensibilities and strong convictions. Among those of his day, to be Irish in a population of European Americans was very near to anathema in itself. To be Catholic? Like black Americans, Catholics were almost universally disenfranchised. Forbidden from voting. Prohibited from holding political office. And—Catholic, a faith which was only gradually tolerated in America. So ya, definitely an outsider, something we routinely say we applaud but in fact usually do so in the hidden agenda of conformity. But one of the things a Thinking Man ponders while smoking a Carroll of Carrollton pipe has to be the tragedy and complexity of the enterprise of American democracy–of its near-failure at the outset, at its continual crises throughout its history, at the perils it faces today. So, as the poet says, “Think–and smoake Tobacco.”
The Carroll of Carrollton was a series imagineered by Josh Burgess, Laudisi’s VP of Manufacturing, who not-so-incidentally holds a PhD in colonial American history from the University of South Carolina (see PPN#184).
The marketing idea was to draw a parallel between the small, long-stemmed tavern pipes of the colonial era, like those made for decades by the old Williamsburg Pottery before that fabled company went into decline. Closer to home, for us and for K&P, however, is the encyclopedic sensibility that has informed the shape chart since the beginning—or at least, since the 1906 catalog.
In the 1906 catalog we find the first generation of today’s Carroll of Carrollton commemorative–the Reading Pipes–which like today’s pipe were produced using small bowls from elsewhere in the production and straight P-Lip stems (which would have made them amazing smoking devices). The medium and long Reading Pipes, as you can see, were pretty much exactly the length of the Carrollton pipes—i.e., demi-churchwardens.
At the cease of hostilities in 1945, K&P launched the second iteration of its long-stems, the Specialty Churchwarden (see PPN#248). It was originally produced only in the 124 Dublin, but was quickly expanded as seen in the detail from the 1947 Distributor’s Shape Chart above.
The 2021 Carroll of Carrollton
(PPN#234)
The first year of the pipe featured a Belgique bowl from the Specialty Quartet that was first issued in 1945. It was issued in an edition of 245 pipes—as the 245th year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The 2022 Carroll of Carrollton
(PPN#291)
Produced in a serialized edition of 246, using one of my favorite shapes from the catalog, the 124 canted Dublin, which debuted as the Specialty Churchwarden in 1945. Sykes Wilford and Josh Burgess did an “All Pipes Considered” video way back in 2022 which you can still view HERE.
The 2023 Carroll of Carrollton
(PPN#248)
The recently introduced Acorn bowl was utilized to magical effect–it’s just made for this kind of pipe–in a run of 247 smooth and 247 sandblasted pipes.
The 2024 Carroll of Carrollton
(PPN#405)
The squat tomato—an original shape just for this release. I think it’s the most beautiful of the six pipes and if you have one in sandblast or Terracotta, drop me a line and I’ll take it off your hands! In an edition of 248 pipes, matching the number of years since the signing of the Declaration.
The 2025 Carroll of Carrollton
(PPN#464)
As in previous editions, the serialized pipes match the number of years since the Declaration of Independence in 1776: 249 for 2025. This year’s pipe featured the recently reintroduced IFS shape 3085 panel.
The 2026 Carroll of Carrollton
I don’t have the email poster yet, but I’ll slot it in here to make the series complete on Wednesday when that poster arrives in everyone’s email box.
This year’s final installment returns to the Belgique. Standard finishes are seen above–the Heritage, Sandblast, Terracotta, and Rustic. There will be a few of the high grades, however, as an Instagram photo revealed:
If you’re wanting something in a high grade, by the way, you can call customer service before the drop on Wednesday and see if they can help you. This is sort of an open secret, but I doubt they’ll mind if I announce it here. Anyway, if the pipes are online, the incredible customer service team (and I absolutely mean incredible as they’ve always gone more than the extra mile for me) can tell you what they have available and even let you make your purchase, although the pipe won’t ship until Wednesday.
Average Measurements & Other Details
- Length: 6.29 in./177.80 mm.
- Weight: 0.60 oz./17.00 g.
- Bowl Height: 2.00 in./50.80 mm.
- Chamber Depth: 1.49 in./37.85 mm.
- Chamber Diameter: 0.74 in./18.80 mm.
- Outside Diameter: 1.66 in./42.16 mm.
- Stem: Vulcanite F/T
- Tenon-Mortise Gap: 15.7 mortise depth -12.4mm tenon length =3.4mm gap
- Filter: None
- Shape: Belgique Demi-churchwarden
- Finishes: Terracotta, Heritage, Rustic + Select High-Grades
- Material: Briar
- Country: United States
Last note to note: the tenon is chamfered. No visible tearaway in the three samples I was privileged to look at.
Intellectual property of Kapp & Peterson
reproduced with their kind permission.
Thanks to Andy Wike @ SPC for providing media materials,
and to Josh Burgess for sending samples to photograph.
CLINT STACEY, CPG sent along this sighting of K&P Demonstrator Moths. He writes, “So here are some moths settling on one of my car boot finds from a few years back. It is a Japanese cupboard called a Tansu but when it has a particular use it becomes a Dansu – like clothes Dansu, tool Dansu etc. This one was for tea but now houses tobacco and related stuff. The things stuck on it are Menuki – which are the charms that were bound in the handle of swords. After the Samuri thing was over people took them and decorated furniture. This is from about 1890.”
