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It’s officially fall. The air is turning crisp, the colors are changing, night creeps in earlier and earlier with each passing day, pumpkin spice is turning basic white girls into ravenous werewolves, and… Christmas decorations are out‽ Aww HELL naw, let’s rewind that a bit and get spooky first!

Just for the record, I don’t hate Christmas. In fact, I love it, with its quiet mystery, magic, and promise of rebirth – though I do hate how over-commercialized the holiday has become. I also adore this year’s Christmas line from Peterson. It is startlingly perfect, and I honestly don’t know how they could ever top it. But I do hold fast to the belief that each holiday has its own time and place in the calendar; celebrating one holiday before the one before it, to me at least, is like putting the alphabet out of order or ignoring PEMDAS when solving a mathematical equation. It’s not the end of the world – but that doesn’t make it right, either. And so… before Christmas, there is Halloween. There is the time to revel in the darkening of the world before relishing the twinkling lights that illuminate that darkness.

Since 2021, Peterson has leaned into those shadows and produced a yearly Halloween line. Three of the previous five lines have incorporated the designs from the Dracula and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde lines, and two of the previous lines were original in their design.

(D. H.’s Visual History of the Halloween Commemoratives)

For the sixth iteration of the Halloween line, the fine folks at Peterson have combined the two concepts – taking design aspects from the Dracula line and turning them into something completely new. When asked about the this year’s line, Glen Whelan told me:

“Each year, our Halloween inspiration ties closely to the general theme of the holiday: spooky, dark, ‘scary’ characters or colour palettes associated mainly with the Holiday. This year we played on two of those themes: darkness and Dracula. We’re offering an acrylic mount in the Dracula stem style sandwiched by jet black rustication and a black stem. We’ve also added something quite unusual for Peterson: a red coloured “P” on the stem.”

To be completely honest, this is not what I would have made. I’ve said before that I would love a stem swirling with purples and greens paired with a crimson bowl, but I also have to recognize two things: 1. I am not the designer of this series, I do not work for Peterson, and as such I am simply projecting my own ideas onto someone else’s creation. 2. In this case, I am glad that I don’t work for Peterson, because this really is a fantastic design. I particularly appreciate the red “P” on the stem and find it to be such a wonderful added detail, and I especially love the Dracula mount. It’s that little flash of color instead of being over-the-top in colors, and I am here for it. Whoever came up with this design did well.

As per Glen, “the series will be offered in the following shapes: 01, 03, 05, 107, 120, 150, 221, 230, 338, 606, 68, 87, X105, XL02 & XL90. 9mm filter options will be available in shapes 03, 05, 107, 221, and XL02.” Now, for me at least, the problem is figuring out which shape I want! 107, XL02, 230… 221?

The 2026 Halloween line will officially begin haunting the pipe world on October 7. Wait… hey, that’s my kid’s birthday!

CHARLES PETERSON MEMORIAL AUCTION

In conversation with Volker Cub, who is the fourth generation former owner of Pfeiffen Tesch in Hamburg, he recently offered me one of the legendary shop’s two original 1906 Peterson catalogs at a substantial discount (the other one sold for 1500 euros).  The shop opened in 1880 in Hamburg’s The Colonnades and has been in the same location ever since.

In case you don’t know the story, Ferdinand Tesch opened the shop in 1880. There was a milliner’s shop next store, run by a beautiful young woman by the name of Therese, and as time and opportunity allowed, they fell in love and married. When business was quiet, they sat on chairs out under the colonnades together. In 1892, Hamburg experienced a severe cholera outbreak and Ferdinand died. By then the shop had become the center of every smoker’s life in Hamburg and Therese gave up her shop and renamed Pfeiffen TeschFerdinand Tesch Wwe, “Wwe” standing for “widow.”

So it was that when Charles Peterson, on his rounds to visit his clients in Germany, came to Hamburg, it was to Therese that he gave this copy of the 1906 catalog, which is stamped “Ferdinand Tesch Wwe” on the first first page! Charles made another visit and delivered another catalog sometime between 1912 and 1913, because the shop also had a copy with a red 1912 price catalog in the front–for which my friend Volker Cub has already found a buyer.

Please check out the auction for all the photos for this absolutely amazing artifact of Peterson history. If you know someone who might be interested in making this important acquisition, please refer them to the eBay auction HERE.

I’ve had the privilege of handling three of these catalogs in my lifetime. One was now unbound copy that is in the custodianship of one of our great Peterson collectors, Lance Dahl, and was shown in 2013 at the Chicago Pipe Show in 2013. A second is owned by the father of Premal Chedda, the artisan pipe maker. It had some damage as well. It was from those two copies that I made the digital restorations of the reprint and commentary. A third copy, from the UK, was missing the front signature and had some pages partially missing. It’s in the library of Gene Umberger, Doctor of Pipes. Kapp & Peterson has either one or two copies. I’ve only seen the one, which has several pages with pipes cut from them.

This copy from Pfeiffen Tesch, despite the weak spine, is in the best condition of any I’ve ever seen. The print is brighter and sharper, the pages have less discoloring, and there are no missing pages or cut outs, despite one small tear.

I’ve started the auction at the price I had to pay to recoup my expense, in the hope of making a thousand dollars for the CP Memorial.  But whatever it makes, past my expenses you’ll see that donation on the CP Memorial GoFundMe page.

TWO UPCOMING FUNDRAISERS FOR THE CP MEMORIAL

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Michelle Tam CPG sent me a box of pipes, accessories, and tobacco this week for the Texas Pipe Show CP Memorial, and in our emails she suggested two fund-raisers that I think will be awesome: a CP Memorial Zippo, containing design elements from the granite cenotaph, and a new batch of the IFS tintackers. I thought I’d have time to get a preliminary design up for the Zippo, but Photoshop hasn’t cooperated today, so it will be next Sunday before I can show you the design.  We’ll go forward with the Zippo once I get intellectual property permission, BUT DOES ANYONE WANT A TINTACKER? OR ANOTHER ONE? I’ll post a Google Form for both next week, but would love to hear from you in the Comments below or via email.

(you remember this, right?)

Available at Smokingpipes.com

LARRY GOSSER, my co-author for OF PIPES & MEN, sent a few photos from his recent expedition to Ireland and the Nassau Street shop in Dublin:

I finally made it to the Peterson Pipe Shop of Dublin. Warm reception, well treated by Manager Darrell Hughes and staff. I bought 2 pipes – a system pipe and a rusticated Derry. A young man even cleared, re-routed people traffic to help my wife get a pic of me in the doorway. Great experience. The manager signed a copy of OF PIPES AND MEN book for me and I donated a book to the store. It must have been the shirt I was wearing. 

I hope everyone is doing well! While waiting for the new PPN Pete, I wanted to share a Kapet Special 725 I recently bought from “pipesandwatches” on eBay. With this one, I’ve reached a total of six pipes from the 700 group.

The important thing is that, judging by the briar, this pipe is—without a doubt, 100%—the very same one featured in your original PPN article on the 700 group. It seems a magnificent collection of historic pieces was recently liquidated on eBay; I’ve seen some amazing pipes in rare, historic shapes coming up for sale from this dealer. Do you have any information about this? I’m curious.

Mark: Yes I do! This is our buddy Brian 500s, and you’re exactly right, he’s letting go of some of his amazing collection right now.

Michael: I’m also sending photos of some other interesting Peterson pipes I’ve acquired over the past year; I think you’ll find some of them quite exceptional.

I sit on the balcony’s edge, smoking my pipe.
My gaze drifts over the rooftops, reaching the mountain beyond.
It lingers where autumn blushes the leaves,
making their looming death seem sweeter than life itself.
The old cedar below the house senses my frailty;
it stretches its branches, folding me in an embrace.
Resin begins to flow.
The briar of my pipe envies its vigor, awakening its own forgotten saps.
Slowly, I feel it creeping onto my lips, turning them to wood.
Gradually, it reclaims my entire face.
The trunk of my body shifts from metaphor to literal truth.
Arms branch out, feet take root.
Essential oils wage war on blood, conquering it entirely.
Blood cells turn to chloroplasts, setting to work at once,
sending a newfound bliss into my every corner.
I think I am budding.
I am green now, a modern Alberto Caeiro, languidly awaiting my autumn.