08. Peterson Limited Edition / Pipe of the Year 2014
It’s July, and that means one important thing for Pete Nuts: the global arrival of the new Limited Edition / Pipe of the Year. There’s been a few trickling out overseas in the past month or so, and I’ve even seen a couple for sale on the internet here in the States, but high summer is the traditional release date. You may wonder why the Limited Edition / POY doesn’t come out in January rather than mid-way through the year. I asked Tony Whelan, Sr. this very question a few years ago. “It’s all to do with the Assay Office and how the orders come in,” he said. “They can’t get the new silver hallmarked and to us until the middle of January or so, which means the pipes aren’t ready until late March/early April. I wish we could convince them to stamp the silver for us in October—that would help us tremendously.” The lag time from April’s first production pipes to the arrival in late May for Europe and mid-June and July for the U.S. has to do with orders placed and shipping—Europe being much closer, of course, and pipes for the U.S. having to travel across the pond in cargo pods. This year’s Limited Edition / POY is a turn towards tradition with what Peterson describes as “a classic straight army with a chimney bowl.” Like every entry in the series since it began in 1997, this year's pipe is XL-sized. What is not always the case, as you can see from the dimensions at the bottom of this article, is a very a large tobacco chamber of approximately 21mm x 47mm—which qualifies it as a chimney, I suppose, with a ratio of width by height of 1 : 2.4. (The old 309, by comparison, is what I’d call a “short stack,” with an average ratio of about 1 : 2.12). As for the finishes—smooth, ebony blast and rustic—you’ll have to make up your own mind which you prefer and why. I’ve always opted for the Limited Edition (smooth) simply because I like the idea of the individually numbered and dated bowl, but given the right shape or mountings, stain color and method of blast or rustication, I could just as easily go in the Pipe of the Year direction, and have done so in the past. The price difference actually isn’t much—about 10% for each step from rustic to sandblast to smooth. The real difficulty, if you go for a Limited Edition, is to get decent internet photographs to see what kind of grain you're getting. Presentation Box After a few years’ variations on the footed, vertical presentation box, 2014’s box is something fresh: a slide-out slipcase with a clear window and rolled pipe sock inside. Beautiful tobacco leaf design. I have to take a point off for using the green pipe sleeve instead of the older cream-colored ones with brown printing that have accompanied so many of the high-grade pipes in previous years, but that may…