Hollco-Rohr catalog

With the prices on K&P estate pipes taking some big jumps in recent months, I thought it might be time to look at one of my favorite eras: the Late Republic (1969-1989), as seen in a Hollco-Rohr distributor catalog that came to me after The Peterson Pipe went to the printer in 2019. It might be argued that I like these pipes because they were made during my first years as a pipe smoker, but in fact I owned only two or three Petes during those years and knew very little about the company. What is becoming increasingly clear to me is that the Late Republic era is, after the company’s start-up in the Patent era (1891-1912 and a few years beyond), the most important in its history. This is not the place to make such an argument, but a solid case can certainly be made aesthetically, with the largest range of shapes and most interesting adornments and finishes; economically, with most pipes produced per annum until the crash of 1984; and structurally, with the best engineered pipes in both the System and Classic range. Hollco-Rohr was K&P’s US distributor from the time James Crean, then owner of K&P, sold the K&P-owned Associated Imports in the 1980s until 1998, when Ashton took over distribution. To Hollco-Rohr’s credit, they were far more interested in Peterson than Ashton later on ever seemed to be. Hollco-Rohr carried other pipes, of course, including Castello, Jobey, Karl Erik, Willmer, Butz-Choquin, Pioneer Comoy’s, GBD and John Pollock. Primary among these, however, were Peterson, Jobey and Butz-Choquin. They also carried cigars, pouches, chewing tobacco and . . . pipe tobacco. I wouldn’t mind to have half a dozen vintage tins of a few of these!   System Range As we did in the The Peterson Pipe, I set about dating this catalog contextually and thought you might enjoy tagging along to see how it’s done, and perhaps even catch any mistakes I've made. The basic idea in dating something like this is to create a set of bookends. The first is the earliest possible date any of the shapes or lines is known to have appeared. The second is to find a shape or line not seen in the catalog. So take a look at the System chart and see what you notice: The earliest “new shapes” are the 301, 302 and 303, which appeared c. 1978; then comes the calabash 305b and 315b from 1984. So our first tentative date is sometime after 1984. Notice also the wonderful Comfort Lip P-Lip vulcanite mouthpieces with their wide saddles on shapes 301, 302 and 315. Finally, see that the 304 and 306 from 1992 are missing—a tentative end marker. The second System page is a bit confusing. The Dublin with Briar Circle (B), Connemara Silver (D) and Standard System (E) are all straight forward and give the collector valuable information, but only in the context of the other catalogs and any additional information contained in this one. The…