Liverpool

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit! Happy St. Patrick's Day! When I was a high school senior my Grandmother sent me $20 and told me to buy something special with it for Christmas. I lost no time making my way to to Ted’s Pipe Shop in Tulsa and selected a pipe I’d been looking at for a long time: a GBD 256 Canadian saddle. I wrapped it up, put it under the tree, and looked at that little box every day for a few weeks until 'The Day." It was by far the best gift I received that Christmas and one of the few over a lifetime of gifts I remember. It would be in my tiny rotation receiving hard and loving use for the next 25 years and the source of a lifelong confusion concerning the difference between the Canadian and Liverpool shapes. About a year and a half ago, Josh Burgess, Managing Director at K&P, wrote me about Peterson Liverpool shapes and we had a wonderful email conversation on the long history of the Peterson long shanks. For St. Patrick’s Day 2023, I’d like to expand on the fruits of that conversation and offer a visual history of these great shapes from 1893 to the present as found in the catalogs and ephemera. DEFINITIONS The best place to begin is with Bill Burney’s classic charts for ASP from back in the day. Bill gathers all the shapes we’ll be considering under the umbrella of the “canadian shape group,” which is a good idea, although I actually think “long shanks” as an umbrella term might be more descriptive. Here’s Bill’s chart delineating the four shapes: In a nutshell, we have two oval and two round shanks and two tapered and two saddle stems, in other words: Oval Taper = CANADIAN Shank is longer than twice the height of the bowl (a "Long Flat" in Pete Speak). Oval Saddle = LUMBERMAN Shank is longer than twice the height of the bowl (never seen in the catalog). Round Taper = LIVERPOOL Shank is longer than twice the height of the bowl (a "Bolton" in Pete Speak). Round Saddle = LOVAT Shank is usually shorter than twice the height of the bowl. Confused? You're not alone. In fact, it took me most of the week to wrap my head around these simple four shapes. I’m sure there are some “ifs” “ands” and “buts” that can be added to these definitions, but as a general rule of thumb, I think they're a good starting place.   PETE SPEAK As usual with K&P, there’s specialized vocabulary that Pete Geeks will find it fun to know and use, culled from the company’s 162 years: Bolton – K&P's traditional name for the Liverpool shape. Flat  – term used in the 1906 catalog to describe an oval stem (sometimes actually flattened on the bottom). A “flat” in connection with a long shank or "Long Flat" = a Canadian. Long Flat – K&P’s traditional name for the Canadian shape.…