Peterson Collectors

Nollaig Shona Daoibh! It's beginning. While the Christmas season is almost over for many, for others—including myself—it's just beginning after the long, dark wait of Advent. I won't pretend I haven't been listening to my favorite Christmas choral music for a while now, but the quiet and stillness that are so much a part of the season really only begin for me on Christmas Eve, about the time my wife completes her four-day baking marathon. It's my earnest prayer that you find peace and joy to sustain and support you, your family and loved ones now and in the coming year. Irish Times ad, December 1916 (note the new De Luxe) For this year's PPN Christmas, several amazing Pete Geeks have banded together to us give a three-day celebration, A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT OF PETERSON PATENTS, looking primarily (but not exclusively) at the House Pipe long-stemmed Systems of the Patent era. I've had a bit of experience myself with these incredible pipes and can testify that a System endowed with one of these beauties is a smoking experience like no other. But you don't have to take my word for it, as today Marc Brousseau can tell you his own story with these amazing pipes.   It was about 13 years ago and my wife and I were in the old part of Quebec City. I popped into a tobacconist to buy a few cigars. As I was looking around my eyes fell upon something very intriguing, a pipe and Zippo box set. Looking a little closer I saw Peterson of Dublin, “Cool, a pipe from Ireland,” I thought to myself and proceeded to buy a couple of cigars. Fast forward about six months and I’m on my balcony having a coffee with my Mum and smoking a cigar. The story of seeing that pipe in Quebec City comes up and she tells me, “I’ll get you a pipe, maybe it’ll get you off cigarettes.” We go to a local tobacconist here in Montreal and I choose the nicest basket pipe they have along with their best selling aromatic, essentially Lane 1Q. “This is really nice,” I think to myself. I buy a few inexpensive estate pipes but there is still something in the back my mind that won’t abate. “Remember that cool pipe from Ireland I saw in Quebec City….?” My first new pipe ended up being a Donegal Rocky 80s, which to this day is one of my favourite Peterson shapes—it’s a perfect execution of that classic bent bulldog look. Now, being a natural collector of all kinds of nonsense since I was a kid, the itch to get more Petersons was beginning to mount. Estate pipes!!!—with eBay to the rescue—my first Peterson estate is an amazing older version of a Donegal Rocky 999 with a lovely craggy look. The beast is unleashed and I dive in headlong, buying estate pipes virtually every week and some new ones possibly once a month. The first Pre-Republic is purchased and a…