Peterson: Speciality Ebony Silver Mounted Barrel P-Lip Tobacco Pipe

In Peterson's 1945 catalog, the Irish marque introduced four Speciality shapes: the Barrel, Tankard, Calabash, and Belgique. The line forgoes Peterson's conventional stamping and shaping cues. Each design receives a name rather than a shape number, and the whole lineup is united by a slender, petite disposition — a stark contrast to the robust, muscular aesthetic that dominates the Irish firm's portfolio. These are the smallest, most lightweight designs Peterson has to offer, and they've been popular favorites over the past 70+ years, with many pipe smokers devoting them to flake tobaccos. Presented here is the rotund Barrel shape which, like the Tankard, is a take on the sturdy-sitting Poker design but one with a more streamlined shank and stem and a rounded bowl reminiscent of its namesake — with this particular one dressed in a formal, ebony stain and accented with the Irish marque's esteemed silverwork for an elegant dress pipe motif, not unlike that of Peterson's Cara series.