130. The POY 2019 Chubby Rhodesian & “A Chat with the Smoker”
Something old, something new! For the first POY of the Laudisi era, Peterson has created something remarkable: a P-Lip celebration of a fan favorite from the shape catalog accompanied by a return of the classic “A Chat with the Smoker” pipe-box brochure, created specifically for this release. The Shape The shape is one Pete Freeks have adored for years: the classic 999. If you haven’t already, you can read about its history here. The shape includes three major bowl variants (if you don’t count the Sculpted briar and Aboriginal meer versions of the early 1980s) and too many bending styles to count, although the shape most collectors think of as the classic 999 is the chubby P-Lip that debuted in the 1937 catalog. While the shape—known today as the chubby rhodesian—was found in many English shape charts of the 1930s–50s, what makes it an iconic Peterson is its massive shank weight and P-Lip. The combined alchemy results in what is arguably the chubbiest shape in Peterson’s catalog. This is the 22nd year of Peterson’s annual commemorative, which began in 1997. It is also the first to be issued exclusively with a P-Lip, which is no small cause for celebration (recall the 2015 Founder’s Edition oom paul was produced with fishtail and P-Lip mouthpieces). The Name Sometimes Peterson will coin a name to accompany a shape, but not often. In the case of the original 999, it was always called the john bull, since the company reserved the name rhodesian for what we now refer to as a bent bulldog. I use the lower case for these descriptive nouns because my editor, Gary B. Schrier, the Peterson book’s editor and publisher, taught us that when referring to a billiard, a bulldog or a lovat one doesn’t capitalize the words because they are common nouns. To be consistent, therefore, when referring to rhodesian, hungarian, zulu, or john bull as pipe shapes, these should also be in lower case. Is there an exception to the rule? Yes, when the words are used in a title or a catalog, as in “The 2019 POY 999 John Bull,” or when the words “Rhodesian Bent 80s” appear as a caption underneath the illustration of a pipe. End of lesson. The Pipe Box Brochure On late-night TV commercials in the 1970s there was always someone saying “But wait—there’s more!” And indeed there is. Inside each POY2019 pipe box there’s a new “Chat With the Smoker” brochure. The “Chat” is one of those great Peterson traditions that began in the 1896 catalog and slowly evolved, moving from catalog to pipe boxes as early as the Irish Free State era (1922-1937), then in subsequent revisions at least six times over the years until its last appear in the mid-1980s. Like its predecessors, the new “Chat” includes a cutaway illustration of the System, a basic chart of available shapes and a guarantee. It goes beyond its predecessors by including a factually-correct historical time line and a specific "chat" about…