Peterson Rhodesian

I always find myself thinking of the classic 999 John Bull (pictured above) as typical of Kapp & Peterson’s house style with its short, beefy shank, chubby tapered mouthpiece and P-Lip.  Unlike other iconic Peterson shapes, however, it seems unlikely that this one was an original. Collectors more knowledgeable than I know there were many English and French makers who also made a shape very like it, if not earlier, then at about the same time beginning in the 1920s or 30s. A 1939 GBD 9239R (Courtesy Al Jones) Al Jones has several favorites, including GBD’s 9242 and 9438, Comoy’s 499, and Sasieni’s Ashford. And if you play with the design a bit, you can come up with a number of variations and more than one name by which the shape is called. Many American pipemen call the 999 a rhodesian, although at BriarWorks they call it a bullmoose. But Greg Pease, perhaps thinking of Tracy Mincer’s Custombilt pipes, would say a bullmoose has a forward-jutting chin and is usually sporting a saddle bit. For Pete Freeks there is fortunately away out of this etymological muddle: what has Peterson always called it? It usually just goes by its shape number, but when Peterson has given it a name, it's always the same name: John Bull. Note also that whenever the two shapes pictured above are named in the K&P ephemera—which is from 1947 to 1992—they’re always given the same names. Diamond-shank? Pete freeks, that's a Rhodesian Bent. Round shank? John Bull. But while the song (or name) remains the same, the fact is the 999 pictured in the 1992 brochure illustration above was not the first nor even the second shape given this number, but the third. Thanks to Steve Dundish and his remarkable 999 collection, it’s finally possible to document all three shapes and shed a little light on the number’s history. The first sighting in K&P ephemera occurs in the 1937 “Chat with A Smoker” pipe box brochure, which was printed at about the same time that K&P opened its London factory in the Bradley’s Buildings on White Lion Street. The thing to notice here is that this 999 is the classic fat beaded version Peterson later dubbed “John Bull,” the name (as Anglophiles know) being a metonym or personification of England, visually depicted, says Wikipedia as “a stout, middle-aged, country dwelling, jolly, matter-of-fact man.” The 999's entry into the Peterson catalog may not be just a coincidence, either. The London factory had just opened (as the book will explain in further detail) to manufacture pipes for the English market, and what more natural than to do than make sure Peterson has on offer a few fashionable English shapes? The historians among us remember Ireland entered what its people called “the Emergency” on September 2, 1939—WWII—a state of crisis that continued until the Emergency Powers Acts was discontinued on the same day seven years later. We review the impact of this for Kapp & Peterson in the book,…