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i everybody, I'm Andy Wike, and welcome back to another episode of All Pipes Considered. Today I'm here with my friend and special guest, Joshua Burgess, the managing director at Peterson. We're here to discuss a very special project for 2023. Now, some of you might remember earlier in the year, Josh and I sat down to discuss the Pipe of the Year and we sort of mentioned that 2023 was a very special year for Peterson, and it's a very special year in part because it marks the 125th anniversary of the final Peterson System patent.

And when we look at the actual patent designs here, one might think that this final System patent was maybe not the most important of the patents. I mean, it's not for the moisture reservoir, but it completed the System. It was Charles Peterson's final patent. He secured it in 1898. And really it transformed the overall shape and perfected the shape of the P-Lip bit. And so, when we look at this holistically, 2023 doesn't just mark the final or the 125th anniversary of the final System patent, it marks the 125th anniversary of the System pipe as we know it today. It's a design that's remained unchanged for 125 years, which I think is pretty rad.

[Joshua Burgess]: It's nice to hear you talk about that because when you read the language of the patent itself, it actually seems kind of dry. It just says something like "a refinement to the P-Lip button."

[AW]: Yeah.

[JB]: And then you look at the pictures of what the P-Lip button, the supposed P-Lip, looked like before the 1898 patent and afterward and it's radically different.

[AW]: Yeah. In the 1896 Peterson catalog, which Mark Irwin did such a great job republishing, you can actually see where it talks about the P-Lip stem. And it's weird because it looks like a regular Fishtail stem with a hole on top. And so, this final System patent completely transformed what the actual bit looks like. And it introduced that dome shape and I think it made it far more comfortable for the user.

I mean, my own experience with P-Lips has sort of been many years of not understanding it whatsoever and not really knowing what all the hubbub was about. And then I read Mark Irwin's Peterson book and really got into P-Lips and understanding some of the historical literature around how to smoke them and realized that your tongue is supposed to go in a very particular place. And that changed everything for me.

I think this design itself is so unique. I mean, there's a reason that so many other makers and marques out there have put their own spin on this particular design. I mean, particularly throughout the 20th century, you saw a lot of pipe makers doing bits that resembled the P-Lip. So yeah, we are here today to talk about a very special project, one that commemorates not only the P-Lip, but the entire Peterson system patent. And that is the 125th anniversary Premier System Barley.

So, we have these in front of us today. They are, I think, some of the best pipes that have come out of Peterson this year. I love the Barley finish. It's this wonderful tanblast natural finish. It's going to patinate with age. Each of these pipes has a sterling silver mount and vulcanite stem. So, Josh, do you want to just walk us through this project maybe from its inception? Like what made you guys choose this finish? What about the Premier System itself? I know that the Premier System used to be a staple within the catalog and it sort of went away a couple of years ago. So yeah, just walk us through maybe the origins of this one.

[JB]: Sure. So the Barley finish is something that we've done before. We've done that on a Spigot pipe before. It's special in the sense that it has nice grain and it's exceptionally clean. That's the most special thing about it. You know, when you're looking at lots of sandblasted bowls as we do at Peterson, that level of cleanness that allows for a tanblast finish; that's pretty rare to come across. And so, when we find those bowls, we feel like they are special. And we were thinking earlier in the year about what we would like to do with them. An obvious choice was to revisit the Barley Spigot, which we'd done in the past. And I thought it was a great pipe.

But as we were working on this, we were also coming off a conversation about how it's the 125th anniversary of the final System Patent, as you say, and someone just sort of had a light bulb moment. It was probably Glen. Every good idea that we ever have is Glen's. It's probably Glen. And Glen said, "You know what, we should do the System in a Barley finish." I was like, "Glen, that's a really great idea." So we were thinking about where it would fit best and we thought just the sort of simplicity of the Premier configuration would work really well with it.

And I remember walking through the factory when they really started to come out of production and they were starting to look — pipes go through this process and in the beginning, they're not finished, they're not shiny yet — but there's this point at which it really starts to look like the finished project. And when I saw these, I thought, gosh we're onto something here. This was really special. You know, we want to feel that way about all our pipes. And we do, like we make pipes that we are passionate about. And if we don't particularly like them, then we don't make them. But there's still some that come along that are really special to us. And for me, I think for Glenn and for Jonathan too, this is one of those projects. So we're very excited about this one.

[AW]: Thank you for that explanation. I think these are definitely special and you can tell — I mean, the grain patterns on these are awesome. You know, you're talking about bold cleanliness but I also think when it comes to grain density, these are pretty gnarly. I mean, some of them are what I would expect from a PSB.

[JB]: Sure. You're going to find some of those.

[AW]: Some of them are so good I'm surprised they're not stamped Supreme, right? I think when it comes to the actual grain patterns themselves, there's a lot of nuance. I think you guys did an exceptional job in the blasting cabinet with these. It's really gnarly. It has this old school sandblast look to it. I think you guys are getting a lot of cragginess these days. And it's really cool to see that level of cragginess without compromising the lines of the shape, too, which I think is exceptionally difficult. But yeah, I'm really excited about how these turned out. I think the silver looks great. Yeah. Jason did a great job at those. And the stems are vulcanite, right?

[JB]: That's right.

[AW]: Was that just a personal choice that you guys made?

[JB]: I mean, it's very true to the historic nature of the project and to the P-Lip. So, you know, in the earlier days of pipe manufacturing, very far back, you've got things like amber and horn.

[AW]: Right.

[JB]: And then vulcanite becomes the earliest of the modern stem materials. It has an older pedigree than acrylic, so we thought it made a lot of sense to do it on this project. You know, another thing I'll mention about the P-Lip that I like so much — and you talked about the functionality of the P-Lip and how it smokes and I think all those things are true — but my favorite thing about the P-Lip is its aesthetic qualities. Working at Peterson, we see an awful lot of pipes passing through the factory and we'll look at a lot of Fishtails, of course, and a lot of P-Lips too. And there's just something about the graceful termination of that P-Lip that it brings to the lines. I think that really is classic Peterson. It's one of my favorite things to see on these pipes.

[AW]: Yeah, I think that's hitting the nail on the head there. You know, I mentioned earlier that the overall aesthetic of a Peterson pipe, like Peterson's house style, has this sort of antique look about it. And that's largely because nothing has changed from a design perspective in 125 years. I mean, we have a modern manufacturing company producing things as they were produced over a century ago. And I think that really speaks to the Peterson tradition, to the stewardship of that tradition, in a modern way. One thing that I wanted to talk about with these particularly, and it's not something that I think a lot of customers would notice maybe until they got their pipe and opened it up, but these have chimneys.

[JB]: Yes.

[AW]: Talk to me about that a little bit.

[JB]: So the chimney is a part of the original design. If you're not familiar with the chimney, the chimney's sort of the Peterson House term, otherwise you'll hear it referred to as a condenser tenon extension, you'll sometimes hear that. And I think there's been some debate among Peterson aficionados over the years about the extent to which this actually matters. Well, our sense, being mine, Glen's, Jonathan's, is that it matters a whole lot.

[AW]: Sure.

[JB]: So we worked it into this design. I think it does make an improvement to the smoke. So we're really happy to see that feature here on these pipes. But I think it's a nice addition. I think it does help in the performance of the System. I think it makes the condensation aspects of the System work better. You know, there's another school of thought that says that it helps with the coolness of the smoke too, but particularly on the condensation, I think it helps and makes a big difference.

[AW]: Yeah. I think so too. From an engineering perspective, and I'm no engineer, but I've read a lot about Peterson. Basically what the chimney does is it extends the tenon to be more central into the cooling chamber. So typically you would just have a tenon that ends right where the cooling chamber begins, but the chimney actually extends that to where it sort of falls where it's already in the reservoir itself. This spooling effect happens, which some people say can cool the smoke, but it definitely helps with condensation, I think. So I always really appreciate seeing the chimney, because again, it just really reinforces that old-school look. But it's also practical and very few modern Peterson pipes do have the chimney. There's the House Pipes I believe that have them.

[JB]: House Pipes have them and all Deluxe —

[AW]: All Deluxe Systems, yeah.

[JB]: — pipes have them on the Standard System; It's sort of built into the stem itself.

[AW]: I see.

[JB]: And to extend that down.

[AW]: There's that little lip at the ...

[JB]: Yeah. That's right. So that's the function there. If you go back a really long time in Peterson's catalog, that was part of the System design too.

[AW]: Yeah.

[JB]: So it does, I think, increase the performance. It's a nice little addition to these.

[AW]: Very cool. Yeah, so we have really awesome tanblasted System shapes. All your favorite System shapes are here. I mean we've got my favorite, which is the 317. But we also have slightly larger 314s and 303s.

[JB]: And the B42s.

[AW]: The B42s. Yeah. So there's lots of different options here. I think all of them are rendered exceptionally well. The silver looks great. I'm really happy with how the vulcanite stems came out and they all have chimneys. So I think taken as a whole collectively, what a tribute to 125 years of System engineering we have here. A tanblasted pipe from Peterson, it's not a Supreme, but some of them very much look like they could be Supremes.

[JB]: You can take that up with Willie.

[AW]: Yeah. I'll take that up with Willie. I'll have a conversation with Willie, like we need to grade these. But no, I'm very happy with how they came out. I think that they're going to be, I don't know, one of those things that you're going to want to have in your collection. So yeah, you can find all these on-site. Any closing thoughts for us, Josh, as we wrap this up?

[JB]: No, just to reiterate that this project was a whole lot of fun for us and one that I think we're enormously proud of, and we hope that all of you out there like it as much as we do.

[AW]: Oh, one last thing that I did want to cover, all of these are stamped with a pretty special stamp. Each of them say 1898 to 2023. So it's a little commemorative touch there, but they're also serialized. Josh, how many did we make this year? It was three...

[JB]: 330.

[AW]: 330, okay.

[JB]: I mentioned at the beginning that coming across bowls like this is a special thing and that's reflected in the limited nature of this release. So 330 pieces.

[AW]: Wow. Okay. 330 pieces, 125 years. Yeah. Just awesome pipes. I hope you guys really enjoy them.