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  1. swilford

    Metal Bands and Caps

    Wow. Thanks for sharing all of that. I didn't know that about white gold. I should have added to my post that I totally echo your recommendation on sterling silver. $30/ounce might sound like a lot, but it takes less than a tenth of an ounce for a pretty hefty band. It's just not expensive in...
  2. swilford

    Metal Bands and Caps

    I'm sure you know all of this, but figured it might help the OP to contextualize your post: The element Nickel (Ni) is different from what is normally called Nickel, or nickel silver (also called German Silver), in the pipe world, which is an alloy, which is about 20% Nickel, 60% Copper and 20%...
  3. swilford

    Peterson upside down logo.

    Absent photos, and assuming the P is on the top of the stem, and given the series in question (both of which were discontinued by mid-2018), I'm chalking this up to a brief period--a couple of years around 2016--where Conor Palmer thought the P should be on top of the stem and upright if the...
  4. swilford

    Peterson Silver Spigots Update?

    I was asked to weigh in here and this assessment is partly right. When Laudisi acquired Peterson, all (or almost all) spigot stems were acrylic and had been for a few years. We added back the System Spigot series, which used vulcanite P-lip stems. And for some (but not all) spigot series, we've...
  5. swilford

    1792 Gone In Less than 12hrs

    Unfortunately, it's still illegal to ship to a final consumer in Hawaii, even with an excise license. We collect and remit excise in a number of states, but that's just not possible in Hawaii, sadly. Here's a Halfwheel article (which also links to the senate bill in question)...
  6. swilford

    Sam Gawith Burnt Ends

    I also totally love the 124. The 230/317, the 124, the 102/15 (number depends on mount) are my favorite Peterson shapes. I also really like the lovat, the billiard and the acorn from the Juniors range. At least, that's all from a 'what I smoke' perspective. Some of my favorite shapes as a...
  7. swilford

    Sam Gawith Burnt Ends

    It's a Rua Spigot 230 (which is the classic range version of the 317). Sykes
  8. swilford

    Sam Gawith Burnt Ends

    Shane and I did a pretty deep dive on this in this video: https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/tasting-notes-full-virginia-flake-burnt-ends It's literally the edges of the block cut off from heat pressing. It hasn't gone through further processing, but being on the...
  9. swilford

    "Poop" Pipe

    Years ago--in 2005 or 2006--Radice made a series of these: https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/radice/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=22579 They never really caught on, but it was a very practical idea. Sykes
  10. swilford

    Online Tobacco Shipments to Alaska?

    All of the major retailers ship to Alaska, including Smokingpipes.
  11. swilford

    125th Anniversary Rua Deluxe System Pipe

    We've been carefully breeding termite-beaver hybrids (making sure they're really crazy) for this very purpose at Laudisi's top-secret pipe research labs in the Philippines (getting them past customs into Ireland was the really hard part...not even gonna tell you how we did that). We didn't...
  12. swilford

    Kiribi Kabuto / IM Corona Old Boy Comparison

    Oh, sure. Yes they do. Peterson and Kiribi lighters are both made by the same Japanese manufacturer and share basic construction. Sykes
  13. swilford

    Kiribi Kabuto / IM Corona Old Boy Comparison

    Great comparison. I wanted to explain the weight difference though. Most or all of the weight difference--why the IM Corona is heavier and why the Kiribi holds more gas--is because IM Coronas have an internal tank and then a metal sleeve around the tank, while Kiribis those two pieces are one...
  14. swilford

    Tobacco Globalism

    Thanks! I should add--just to be maximally clear--that both directions all of the tobacco work is done by the factory it originates with. Nothing changes with the tobacco either way. No. There have been no changes in distributors for these products. So Arango continues to distribute Rattray's...
  15. swilford

    Tobacco Globalism

    Yes, but the other way around: US->EU import duties are high, so it made sense to have C&D packaged in Germany. K&K didn't have packaging capacity to do all of their own stuff, let alone adding in C&D for Germany (and some other EU countries) on top of that. We were in a better place to scale...