382. Paul Combs Visits the NAP Workshop of Silver Gray
Last fall, Pete Geek and House Pipe Champion Paul Combs got a chance to visit the workshop of Silver Gray and her partner, the esteemed artisan Brad Pohlmann. While Paul wasn’t allowed to photograph the Top Secret Inner Recesses of Silver & Brad’s mad scientist workshop, he did bring away some photos of not quite so sensitive a nature.
Paul (left) and Brad (right)
If you’ve only begun reading the blog in the past year or so, Silver Gray is the artisan who recreated Charles Peterson’s Patent NAP button for the Pete Geeks. Previous posts contain some great photos and valuable information about the making of these extraordinary pipes, as well as their reception by a vetting group formed at the Vegas Pipe Show. If you’ve never taken a look at Charles Peterson’s only truly artisan-grade button, you owe it to yourself as a Pete Geek. What’s more–and I can’t emphasize this enough–Silver Gray has taken CP’s original concept and improved it. I don’t have one of these newer NAP buttoned Systems, but I’ve examined them up close and personal and can tell you she’s excelled and would have made Charles Peterson very, very proud.
Post #124: Rediscovering the NAP
Post #144: ’s NAP Replicas
Post #160: NAP Roundtable at the Vegas Pipe Show
Post #162: Engineering Thoughts on the NAP Button
Post # 241: Vetting Group Thoughts Two Years After the Reproduction
Post #337: Silver’s NAP House Pipe Stems
Silver with a DeLuxe NAP button, one of the few she’s made (and still available!)
I wrote Silver this past week to ask her if she had any NAP Peterson Systems available, and to my delight, she does. You can view them at her Gallery Page.
Silver writes, “I have curtailed fitting older, estate pipes with new NAP’s. Unless they have been extremely babied or smoked rarely – it is too tricky to fit a new stem in a mortise that has been abused.
I am having two of our industry’s leading tobacco blenders (Greg Pease and Jeremy Reeves) do a review of the NAP stem while testing new blends with both the P-Lip and NAP in addition to a pipe they normally test their blends with.”
She also said she and Brad will have a table at the Mule Town Pipe Show March 8-10th in Columbia, TN, where she’s hoping to bring about 15 of her pipes. You can contact her for more information on these through her website.
Addendum: Take A NAP
Ken Sigel, CPG, is currently companioning NAP-stemmed Petes and kindly forwarded me some photos:
Many thanks to Paul Combs, CPG
and to Ken Sigel, CPG
Update on the Pete Geek Cups & Caps
Everything’s on schedule for the Deneen Pete Geek Mugs and the Hat Man of Ireland Dubliner flat caps.
The mugs should be shipping to me in three weeks or so, while the Dubliner caps should go into product late next week and be ready to ship out to you in mid-March.
If you filled out the Google Request Form, you’ll receive a PayPal request when the mugs and hats are ready to ship.
You’ll also be updated here on the blog, reminding you to look in your spam folder if you didn’t receive a PayPal request.
And if I don’t hear from you, I’ll drop you a line!
So be of good cheer—we’re in this together and your mug and cap are on the way!
Chicago Pipe Show, Friday, April 12th, 3-4pm