History of Army Mount

Good news this morning! Kapp & Peterson is releasing their finest Army Mount ever this week. No ifs, no ands, no buts. It’s as perfect a Pete as you could want. Before looking at why the new Short Army is so great and its place in the long history of K&P army mounts, we should begin with essential information regarding Tuesday’s drop party. THE DROP Time. Per Andy Wike at Laudisi, “The official retail launch date for Peterson’s Short Army pipes is Tuesday, June 27th at 6:00 p.m. EDT.” Finishes.  The Short Army is being offered in rustic brown and tan contrast, black sandblast and smooth, glossy chestnut. Shapes. There’s an amazing array of shapes on offer, but if there’s a particular sandblast or smooth shape you’re drawn to, you may want to be at the drop party.  I only had access to these thumbnail photos, but remember you can look anything up at SPC or SPE: Rusticated Shapes 01  *  65  *  68 *  69  Shapes 80s  *  86  *  102  *  106  Shapes 107  *  120  *  124  *  150 Shapes 406  *  606  *  701  *  B42   Shapes X105  *  XL13  *  XL14  *  XL16  * XL22   Sandblast Shapes 01  *  80s  *  406  *  701   Smooth   Shapes 65   *  68  *  86  *  87  Shapes 102  *  106  *  107  *  150    Shapes X105  *  701 MSRP is $110 to $150, so put those prices in your SPC calculator and see what you come up with wherever you do your pipe shopping.     THE NEW EBONITE P-LIP You’re looking at what makes these pipes so phenomenal: the new ebonite P-Lip stem. It’s a work of aesthetic art and engineering skill. I’ve been smoking the 68 bent brandy and an 87 apple Short Army for about a month now—something I don’t ordinarily get to do in these Special Bulletins.  When I pulled them out of the box I was immediately struck by this new stem. “A lot of time and energy went into getting the stems just right,” Josh Burgess (Managing Director) told me. “Glen Whelan (Director of Sales), Jonathan Fields (Production Manager) and Sinéad Carroll (Production Coordinator) all had a hand in these” as did Josh himself, Sykes and Giacomo Penzo. “This was a fun project,” Sykes Wilford said. “I think the pipes are just really cool. Funnily, the biggest challenge we ran into was figuring out the stem for them; we made rough samples with other stem designs and then Giacomo Penzo (K&P’s Pipe Specialist) worked out how to do what we did here and I think it looks great.” They require a lot of extra work, Sykes said, but it’s been well worth it as you can see. “We have a handful of interesting stem things over the next few months,” he says, “and the prototypes and samples look really good.” Fig. 1: 1906 catalog   Fig. 2: 1906 catalog   Fig. 3: 1995 Antique Collection   Fig.…