Peterson XXL

Ask most any pipeman and he’ll tell you there’s nothing quite as fascinating, mysterious or vexing as not being able to properly identify a pipe. Kapp & Peterson, as the world’s oldest continuously-operating briar pipe maker, has done a rather remarkable job in helping us date their pipes through the use of hallmarks, Country of Manufacture (COM) stamps, line stamps and shape numbers. There are still a few, however, that can bedevil the collector, especially at the magnum end. “You can’t have my Peterson Giant, by Crom!” If we could look in the glossary of the mythical K&P Design Handbook we would doubtless find something like the following two entries: N Stamp use no Stamp on any pipe made for members of the Irish Illuminati or the Secret Society of Fomorians (Old Irish: Fomóire, lit. “giants”). O Stamp  use an Obfuscation Stamp for any pipe weighing over 90 grams or larger than a Leprechaun’s rear end. There is, in other words, something mythic about these behemoth pipes, something that precludes their being identified with a simple shank stamp. I want to focus on the least known of these, the “Giant,” but a better understanding of its place in the catalog will be achieved by scrolling to look at three others: the “Pub,” the “Hand Made” and the “Plato,” which lands us at just a few years after the Giant’s demise. The Pub Pipe debuted in the summer of 2019 The “Pub Pipe” is the most recent of K&P’s giants to enter the catalog. Most Peterson Geeks know it’s the System version of the Classic Range Founder’s Edition / D18 that was the 2015 Pipe of the Year, also known as the Founder's Edition.  The Pub Pipe was one of the first releases in the Laudisi Era and has proven its place in the catalog, being issued in several finishes, including a Silver Cap version. I love it nor merely because it's a System, but because it’s part of the shape family centered around shape 4 (309), a group which K&P originally called “straight-sided billiards” and later the "dutch bent billiard." There were originally 10 of these shapes, including two in the magnum or giant class. We are fortunate that the company still makes the original 8 / 313 / 338 as well as the later 01 / 301 and the “Pub.” I certainly don’t object to the name, as I can think of no better way to spend a hypothetical evening than with my friends in a quiet pub with good beer and a Please Smoke Your Pipe sign on the wall. The HAND MADE stamp, however, continues to bother me because it’s neither made by hand (in the sense of a Larrigan one-off, hand-turned pipe) nor is it the earlier "Hand Made" House Pipe which also uses this inexplicable stamp, to which I'll come in a moment. I won’t say it’s as if K&P simply couldn’t afford a new stamp with P-U-B on it, nor will I complain that…