Ireland, 1940s
Speaking shortly, escapism is a definition for the escape from reality. More widely this is an aspiration of the personality to “remove themselves from the rigors of daily life”, caused by some stressful factors. Any vigorous activity (career, art, sport, fashion, role-playing games, sex, religion etc.) can become the way of escapism. Moreover the way of escapism can be also a passive activity – viewing of movies, reading books, alcoholic or drug intoxication, meditation etc. In other words it can be anything you like to do and of course it includes such an incomparable way for achievement of harmony as smoking and collecting pipes.
However, the real life won’t allow us to escape and didn’t allow earlier. Not only smokers and collectors experienced that, many brands bear the impress of social and political trends.
Let’s take Peterson’s pipes and look what is stamped on them. Initially (during so-called “patent era”, 1875-1910) there was no country of manufacturing (COM) specified, looks like the life at that time was quiet and smooth. Nevertheless the XX century brought many stresses and changes, and the Peterson’s pipes reflected these changes in their own way. Since 1915-16 the inscription “Made in Ireland” appeared on pipes. On January 15, 1922 the Irish Free State was proclaimed and from that time till 1937 “Peterson’s” were marked “Irish Free State”. On December 29, 1937 the state under the name Eire was proclaimed and the stamping on pipes was changed respectively to “Made in Eire” and remained till 1945 approximately.
And then the nightmare for collectors began. The nomenclature “Made in Ireland” came back again and disappeared only with the end of a famous pre republic era (1949). So no one could tell precisely if this pipe was made before 1922 or in the period from 1945 till 1949. However, there is another hint in our case: the stamping “A Peterson Product” was introduced on some series (Shamrok, Killarney) only in 1948. So our today’s pipe can be dated very precisely and successfully – 1948-1949.
The pipe looks very attractively for its age. It was moderately smoked, only the collar was once a little bit fixed (there is a repair track on one of its sides). The pipe markings are “SHAMROK”, “”A PETERSON \ PRODUCT” \ MADE IN IRELAND”, “155”. The length is 14.0 cm, bowl’s hight is 4.5 cm. External and internal diameters of the bowl are 3.9 cm and 1.7 cm. The depth is 3.6 cm and this pipe weights 37 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, no filter.
Richard
Hi many thanks for helping me date a pipe I have just recently purchased, it turns out to be a pre-republic Shamrock 155 identical to the one pictured.
It appears to have been hardly smoked at all and is in superb condition.
It is probably my favourite Peterson so far!
Kind regards
Richard