French Patent System

  CHICAGO PIPE SHOW Public Service Announcements PADDY LARRIGAN, BROKEN PIPE, TBA We will be honoring Paddy Larrigan at the show this year at some point, who passed away on February 9th of this year. If you have a 20s or a 314 (Paddy's favorite shape), bring it as we raise a bowl of vintage Erinmore (Paddy's favorite blend) for our tribute. Friday @ 10-12am: Bowl Turning--A Virtual Tour at the Factory with Glen Whelan, Giacomo Penzo & Mark Irwin This presentation will give Pete Geeks and the general audience a close-up and personal look at the stages of bowl turning, with a Q&A afterwards. Friday @ 2-3pm: Pete Geek Meet We'll be showcasing some amazing Petes from the collections of Mike Austin, Lance Dahl, Ken Sigel, and James Walsh as well as discussing (with examples) shape evolution from the Patent era to the present. Do bring Petes you want to share with everyone. The PPN photographer will be there. Saturday and Sunday at the Show Peterson Pipe Notes will have a table right next to Gary Hamilton's table again, so do stop by for a chat. Ken Sigel is hosting the PPN table and we'll have good conversation, a few pipes & books, and a surprise I've been working on. Smoking Tent The Pete Freeks, Geeks, & Degens will be in full force in the smoking tent. Look for the greatest crowd in the evening after dinner, from 7 or 8 to midnight. Don't be shy--come up and introduce yourself! A preview of Gary's table   AN UNKNOWN FRENCH PATENT COMPETITOR TO THE PATENT SYSTEM? by Sébastien Canévet   Last week, while browsing the usual online flea markets, I came across a pipe “in the style of Peterson.”My first reaction was, “yet another copy,” but just before moving on to the next listing, I noticed an unusual detail: the “button” had three holes instead of one.  I looked carefully at the other pictures and eventually bought the pipe for the princely sum of ten euros (about twenty quid), just to be sure.  Yesterday, I received the parcel, and… yes… I’m pretty sure this pipe is a French attempt to challenge the Peterson patent.  Let me explain my deduction, Watson—well, Mark. This pipe bore the mark of a very famous clay pipe maker called Gambier on one side, and a strange inscription on the other: “Russe – breveté SGDG” (« Russian – patented without government guarantee »).  The markings were quite hard to read, but I have found online another pipe with the same marks. Gambier was founded in northeastern France at the end of the eighteenth century and became a major factory, with 600 employees producing fifty million clay pipes each year by the mid-nineteenth century. “Well, it’s a great pipe maker, Sébastien, but a CLAY pipe maker, and your find is a BRIAR one,” you might ask.Yes, you are perfectly right, my dear Watson.But at the end of the nineteenth century, the clay pipe market was in decline,…