84. A Visual History of the St. Patrick’s Day Pipes, 1998–2022.
[Revised June 18, 2022.] Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit! Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, whenever you read this! 2020 marks the 22nd anniversary of the St. Patrick’s Day commemorative pipes for Peterson, and if you're wondering where it came from and where's it gone, here's a visual history of the series along with a few notes. History and Series Characteristics Tom Palmer, who was CEO during Peterson'd Dublin Era (1998-2018) had an idea for an annual pipe 1997, when Peterson released its first Limited Edition / Pipe of the Year. The following year the company decided to add two annual commemoratives, a St. Patrick’s Day and a 4th of July. While the 4th of July pipe has long been gone, the SPD has given Kappnists (or Pete Nuts) many great pipes over the years, with none perhaps quite as marvelous as this year’s 20th anniversary 2018 and the original 1998. The price-point of the series is at the solid entry-grade of the Classic Range, roughly equivalent to the Aran line in most years (with some exceptions). Another distinguishing feature of the series is that in many years during the Dublin Era a shape (or even two or three) from a special collection or high-grade series—think the Antique Collection for the former and the Sherlock Holmes for the latter was often featured. Every Peterson high-grade issue has bowls that aren’t of sufficient quality to make the cut but must be used, and often these feature some fantastic grain. For most years, the series has offered 12 shapes. We know the series began in 1998 because Brad Weinfeld of SAG Imports was working for Hollco-Rohr, Peterson’s US distributor at the time, and during the course of our research on the Peterson book he took the trouble to send us the final sales catalog of that company, dated July 15, 1998. If you click on the image, you can see the SPD and 4th of July annual commemoratives described as “NEW,” as well as their wholesale and retail prices. 1998 The series began auspiciously enough, with a brass and acrylic sandwich band of the Irish colors and P-Lip. For this and most of the years, I don’t know which shapes were released, although they were for the most part taken from Classic Range shapes. Two of the three images of purported 1998 SPDs I have show a light, matt finish. Seen above is the unique bent shape from the 1997 Racing Green / Claret limited editions. I can’t give you the shape number, because there wasn’t one stamped on the only Racing Green I have handled. I also have a photo of a 107 SPD, probably with its original box and sleeve, with a stain that matches the RG: As you can see from the two representatives, the 1998 SPD was released with a P-Lip. The mouthpieces featured the white impressed P standard at the time. 1999 I once had an XL20 SPD (seen above) with a dark…