POY – Limited Edition

The Premier System Rustic 308 was released on May 19th as an exclusive through Smokingpipes.eu and the Peterson Grafton Street store in a total issue of 75 pipes and has since then been making its way to various stewards all over the globe. It's the 6th release in the Charles Peterson small batch collection and richly deserves a moment's pause to celebrate its considerable virtues (for earlier releases, see Post #315). The Blaszczak Bros. Rustic Revolution The sixth CP is the second to feature “Blaszczak Rustication” (yes, that’s just been entered in the Quick Reference guide of the next Peterson book), a style I and many others love (see Post # 269 on the work of Wojciech and Jaroslaw Blaszczak). If you don’t, no worries, as rusticated pipes have never by any means been everyone’s cuppa, hovering out there with virgin finishes and (not so many years ago) even sandblasts. As the advertising text said, the shape first appeared as the 14, one of Charles Peterson’s original Patent shapes. Seen above in the 14A, it is very close to the shape we associate with the vintage 308s seen on the estate market. The main difference is in the width of the tenon/mortise connection, which would become narrower over its 70+ year history. As a shouldered “A” and in its first documented appearance as the 308, it appeared in the 1937 catalog. The illustrator bungled the first line of the bowl, in my opinion, but there you have it. As a 308 it was the 2nd grade, or Premier, featuring the sterling mount and a bone tenon extension. At that time, the 3rd grade or what we think of as Standard, was shape 358, which is seen in the 1939 Rogers Imports catalog: Again, while the artist did his best, the ferrule is quite obviously too short and the angle of the stem as it moves into the mortise not right either! Anyway, the shape went along, apparently selling well enough, until sometime after 1955. The Dublin & London catalog I have from that year has a DISCONTINUED stamp over the shape, and while I can’t say when the book was stamped (and what a labor that must’ve been), as a new catalog didn’t come along until 1965, the shape might conceivably have continued for another decade: Here is the 308 most of us know, and a sweet one it is. Fast forward almost 70 years and true to its initial promise, Laudisi-era Peterson has been steadily at work bringing K&P’s great achievements back for contemporary pipemen to enjoy. Shape 14 is the latest of their efforts, which appeared as the 2022 POY (see Posts #296 and #297). Putting the bowl into the 308 configuration, of course, gives it a very different effect: Three 308s: Standard Early Republic (L), new Premier Rustic (M) and Premier Smooth Early Republic (R) Seen above are two 308s from the mid-1950s, a Standard on the left and a Premier on the right. The Premier Rustic…