B Shapes

 PSA: PETE GEEK EVENT The Nate Lynn CPG Leather Pipe Stand See end of post for details The 10th anniversary of Peterson Pipe Notes is this very day, and I used it to say goodbye to my all-time favorite shape, the 4 /309.  The blog came about, as I’ve said a thousand times (that’s pronounced “TAO-send” since we speak Irish here), because I kept discovering information that could never be squeezed into the book we were writing.  After the book was published I found there was so much more that might be shared, the blog became a place not only to share my own continuing research but allow for the participation of other Pete Geeks as well--or as many as I've been able to persuade. left to right: Irwin, Bill Unger and Fred Hanna at the 2013 Chicago Pipe Show Five years before the blog and two years before the idea of Peterson book got under way, I was just beginning to think about pipe writing as something I’d like to try. I was been a member of the North American Society of Pipe Smokers (NASPC), which provided a way for me to write and see myself published under the accomplished editorial guidance of the late Bill Unger. One of my first articles was a travelogue of my recent pilgrimage to visit the factory in Sallynoggin and the shop in Dublin. This morning I thought I’d share that article, which was supposed to be a write-up of how I got the itch to write a book about Peterson out of my system.  Instead, it became the foundation for the Peterson book, a Peterson blog and a handful of other pipe books. These photos remind me that sixteen years turns out to be a very long time, as both the Peterson shop and the K&P factory have moved.  Looking at them does, however, make me want to make yet another pilgrimage, this time to see the new factory as well as some of my favorite sights in Ireland’s never-ending splendor.  I want to encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to make your own pilgrimage. Whether this is your first visit to the blog or you’ve been reading it like Linwood Hines since it began on May 26th, 2014, let me thank you for the opportunity to share information, interest, passion and enthusiasm about the world’s greatest pipe maker and its pipes. With your continued interest and support, perhaps the blog may be around for another few years-- We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. —T. S. Elliot, “Little Gidding”   Smoak in Peace, Fellow Pete Geeks-- Mark PILGRIMAGE TO PETERSON’S OF DUBLIN (The Pipe Collector, 17, no. 5, October 2009, 14-17) The Peterson pipe tends to be the kind of thing one was always above, one has outgrown, or one simply adores. Like the British sports car aficionado,…