Peterson XL339 pipe

On my first visit to the Peterson factory in 2009, I fell into a conversation about the stand-out pipes in Peterson's long history with then-factory manager Tony Whelan, Sr. and silversmith David Blake, since retired. They began a back-and-forth litany of the pipes they felt were truly important in the time they'd been working there. Their list began with the 1975 Centenary pipes. 1975 was an incredible year for Peterson, a high-water mark not seen since the 1910s: pipe sales were going through the roof, the company had a new factory out in what was then the countryside of Dún Laoghaire (the workers played football in the field behind it for many years), and they were celebrating what they thought of as their 100th anniversary. As part of that celebration, the company released the first of its true commemorative pipes—the 1875 – 1975 Centenary issues. Unsmoked and with their original boxes and certificates, these will become among the most highly sought-after collectibles in the Peterson world, and they deserve to be for a number of reasons: they were the first true commemoratives of the company; they were among the first forays into the “collectible mindset” that would signal a sea change in the pipe-collecting world at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s; the bowls were high grades; they were individually, serially stamped by bowl shape – that is, “x” out of so many—it could be 1/11 or 22/83, depending on the bowls Peterson was able to source in that particular shape; they all featured the complete P-Lip: button, graduated bore, aluminum tenon; the bent shapes featured a System reservoir. Issued in smooth bowls, they were uniformly given a deep undercoat of black – you’ll notice the striking black grain pattern popping through – followed by a rich dark mahogany top coat. The sterling bands were stamped with the 1875 – 1975 Centenary logo, hallmarked “h.” So when I saw this old Centenary on eBay, of course – it being my favorite Peterson shape – I jumped at it. And I’m glad I did, although it presents an anomaly to the Centenary story that I don’t have an answer for, as yet: there’s no serial stamp! Instead, on the bottom of the shank at the mortise there is a small “X166.” I checked the bowl over, comparing it against the photos we’ve accumulated and the other example I have in my rotation, and it’s the same grade, same stain, but no limited edition number. The 339 and slightly larger XL339 shape with the "B" stem is something of a throwback to the earliest days of briar pipe-making: the huge tapered stem gives it an elephantine appearance that I can imagine might be off-putting to many. It has a Victorian or Edwardian air about it that suggests it would have been at home in the pocket of Holmes or Watson. The XL339 shape derives from Charles Peterson’s original 4, which later became the 4S DeLuxe System, 309 Standard System,…