System Pipes

Peterson and the oom paul go all the way back to Charles Peterson’s Patent System designs in the 1890s. But it was the friends of South Africa’s President Kruger who, in wanting to find him an appropriate birthday present, accidentally set off a chain of publicity in 1899 that would help establish Kapp & Peterson in the burgeoning global pipe market. As we relate in one of the double-page spreads in The Peterson Pipe, when Kruger’s friends custom-ordered one of K&P’s oversized House Pipes pipes from the catalog at a French tobacconist’s in Johannesburg, they sparked a political controversy that made its way into all the major papers of the day.  They also created an enduring interest in what K&P originally described as the “straight-sided billiard,” but which would come to be known by returning soldiers after the Boer Wars as the dutch billiard or, in its larger version, the oom paul. Fast forward to 2019 when, to my delight and doubtless that of many Pete Freeks the world over, Peterson has put the D18, the Founder’s Edition / 2015 POY, into the System line—hopefully for keeps, but in any event for a little while. Kapp-Royal (left) and Blackrock (right), both from Lubinski After the D18’s first appearance in 2015, a few of the natural high grade bowls trickled into the Italian-market’s Kapp-Royal line. A few more followed not long afterwards in the Blackrock sterling-mount Italian line. To my lingering regret, however, three or four D18s appeared as De Luxe Natural Systems with tapered space-fitting tapered vulcanite stems. I had one in my cart and was agonizing over whether I’d really smoke it enough to to push the "buy it" button when it disappeared. Sniff. The sandblasts, with their more typical saddle space-fitting stems were also nice, but none called my name. (Why is it every Peterson aficionado I talk to prefers the tapered space-fitting mount, yet Peterson makes so few of them?) Left to Right: Tara, Dublin Edition, Arklow Red In 2017 more D18s found their way into the Summertime / Tara annual. Since then the shape has appeared in the gateway Dublin Edition and the low-profile Arklow Red. But aside from that handful of De Luxe Natural and Sandblast Systems, the D18 has never been issued as a System. As must be the case for any company making briar pipes, bowls that are purchased need to be used—which is why so many of the fabulous B and XL shapes in the Dublin Era would trickle down into the St. Patrick’s Day or Christmas annuals and why the D18 has already made so many appearances in other lines. But now, finally, the Pub Pipe is here to realize the D18's full potential in a space-fitting sterling mount System. I for one am hoping sales might convince Peterson that there are a lot of pipemen besides me who’d like to see the return of a larger traditional oom paul to the catalog. Josh Burgess, managing director at Peterson, tells how…