Vintage Shapes

  by Mark Irwin with James Walsh and Dan Butler   Cassette: Top left: Killarney 02BB, 9mm filter, MITROI; Top Right: Killarney 02BB, pointed stinger, MITROI Middle Left: System 3 2A, no COM Middle Right: Kapruf 02BB, MITROI Bottom Left: 1923 System 2S w/ Maltese cross, no COM, bone chimney (missing). Bottom Right: Sterling, For Shannon Airport, 02, MII (circle), ball stinger. (Courtesy James Walsh CPG) It’s been over a month since the POY 2025 “02BB” was released to the delight and smoking edification of Pete Geeks all over the world, and in the intervening weeks I’ve smoked mine—all three of them—in rotation on most nights.  While I haven’t done any door-to-door polling on owner satisfaction, I feel certain sighs of contentment are rising like the incense of the evening sacrifice.  As this is my very favorite shape after the 309, I thought it fitting we take a second look at the new POY this morning with the help of Peterson collector James Walsh and artisan pipe maker Dan Butler. If you haven’t looked at my earlier post on the 02 / 02BB in a while (PPN #206), you might want to  refresh your memory, although I’ll try to hit the high points here.   SO HOW DID WE GET TO THE POY 2025? The 1973 Associated Imports catalog XL Premium Range   The 1976 Associated Imports brochure XL range (This is from the very first Peterson brochure I ever owned.) To begin, the first and astonishing thing to me is that our slimline 02 / 02BB—the “stack dutch”--isn’t actually found in any  known catalog ephemera until 1973.  And after that, it appears only once more, in 1976. Crazy, right? It’s almost beyond weird, since the shape--if not ubiquitous in the pipe-smoking Hollywood movies of the 1940s--is certainly a featured player. The second thing to note is that, like several other shapes in the catalog, the stack dutch (or oom paul if you must) has had more than one catalog number. In order, they move from the 02 to the 02BB to the XL02.  Until now. In the shape charts of 1937, 1947, 1955, 1975, and 1980, the 02 and 02BB  are nowhere to be seen, even though vintage examples with the MITROI (Made in the Republic of Ireland) and MADE IN IRELAND shank stamps appear almost as often as the 9BC on the estate market. What's interesting today is how a shape almost never advertised has become so popular among Pete Geeks over the decades. There’s the Maserati Theory, according to which it never needed to be advertised because it was always intended for an exclusive clientele. There’s the Whitman – Dickinson Theory, according to which it was never popular until after it was gone, when pipemen woke up and smelled the burning tobacco. There’s also the Boot Sale Theory (aka Garage Sale Theory), which states that if enough artifacts survive, at some point they will be proclaimed Vintage Chic.  It’s all theorizing, but the fact remains that for…