120. The 2019 St. Patrick’s Day Commemorative SYSTEM
Revised Feb. 8th, 2019. The past year or so has been a little difficult for some pipe smokers. Do you remember where you were when you heard McClelland was shutting down? How many seconds did it take for you to hit the speed dial to your favorite tobacconist? As usual, as I was one of the last to know and so missed out on the feeding frenzy, but I remember it hit me quite viscerally, about 11:30 in the morning. I was teaching a class of 8th graders and had to step out of the room and “take a moment,” as they say. My students were just asking me if they needed to dial 911 when I told them it would be alright, I just needed to take a few more deep breaths. And now, as I’m sure you’ve probably heard, it looks like Pipes & Tobaccos magazine will be folding up shop after 23 glorious years of continuous publication. Something to do with the way advertising is done nowadays. Something about “people don’t read anymore.” Something about a dystopian plot to destroy the pipe smoking world that makes Fahrenheit 451 look like Captain Kangaroo (don’t tell me you don’t know who he is, I don’t want to hear it). Then there was that moment last June when Tom Palmer said he had sold Peterson. What the Fridge? What does that even mean? I was relieved to hear who bought it, at least, although still pretty nervous. Well here we are about eight months later, and there’s some good news in the bleak days of late winter. You’re looking at it at the top of the page, and peppered all through this post. Laudisi is redeeming their promise to steward Peterson, and here’s the second installment. I’ll talk about the first one a little later, but right now let’s focus on the Laudisi Era’s first St. Patrick’s Day pipe—a System! How cool is that? It was long-time Peterson staffer Glen Whelan (Tony Whelan’s son) who had the idea, according to managing director Joshua Burgess. Glen was also in on the creation of the Founder’s Edition pipe back in 2016 (the D18 Oom Paul) and is an established part of the creative team there, having worked in the Dublin shop as well as in Peterson management for a long time now. Shapes? The SPD 2019 System is being offered in nine System shapes: the 301 pot, 302 large apple, 303 apple, 304 flat-bottom, 305 calabash, 307 large billiard, 312 medium billiard, 313 small dutch and 314 small billiard. That’s pretty most of the System range, apart from the 306 Flat Bottom, the tiny 317 billiard, the B42 / Darwin and the bent House Pipe. Except . . . except . . . at first I thought the pipe on the banner might be an XL23 / Lestrade that somehow made it through the production lines and was mis-stamped. Notice the long, flat line at the base of the…