New Shapes

PSA "Rack it Up!"--IPSD (International Pete Smokers Day) is almost here! "Watson, I'm not surprised you forgot. Be a good fellow and have a photograph of my pipe rack sent to our friend at Peterson Pipe Notes.  You can have the Certified Pete Geek certificate made out to you, and perhaps Mrs. Hudson will quit rolling her eyes behind your back when you smoke that--that thing you call a pipe which most certainly is not a Peterson Patent System."  That's right, IPSD is this Thursday, February 20th. Earn a Merit Badge or CPG by sending a photo of how you display your Petes. Include a brief description if you made your own or have something unusual to share. Email to petegeek1896@gmail.com before 12 noon CST on Wednesday. On May 26th, 2014, I ran the first PPN post. It was short enough--unlike nearly everything since--to actually be a blog post and not an encyclopedia entry: "The Treachery of Images," by Rene Magritte 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” There’s nothing like beginning with endings. So it is that I bring some late news you may not have heard—2013 was the final year of production for Shape 4 (the Deluxe 4S), known by most Pete Geeks as the 309, but also seen in the Classic Range as the XL339S. From its first appearance in the 1896 catalog as one of eight “Straight-Sided Bowls” until last year, the 4 (or 309) was one of a handful of original Patent shapes that defined the System.* Indeed, it was featured in the perennial line drawing of The Thinking Man (not the painting) from the time of his appearance in 1906 until now. The 309 shape, called by Kapp & Peterson throughout most of its history a dutch billiard, was also the preferred pipe as the 4AB for Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes in the final ten films he made for Universal Studios. Its chamber dimensions, averaging about 2.11 : 1.00 of depth by width or 41mm x 19.3mm, make the 309 an ideal Virginia and Virginia flake pipe, qualifying in many pipemen’s thinking as a “short stack,” but not so narrow as to preclude pressing it into service for English and Oriental tobaccos as well. The market has apparently reached saturation after 118 years (not a bad continuous run for pipe shape), and the demand is now so slight that Tony Whelan Jr., factory manager in Sallynoggin, told me it has been dropped from production with a few other shapes. But don’t be sad, Flying Ace, because there’s still plenty of examples of this fine shape to be had on the estate market, most going for a song. And like other shapes in Peterson’s catalog, it might just resurface. You never know. 309 AVERAGE MEASUREMENTS Length: 5.23 in. / 132.84 mm. Weight: 2.00 oz. / 56.70 g. Bowl Height:…