Peterson Mark Twain: the Original Pipe and the New Collection

Peterson Mark Twain is a series developed by the Irish Peterson brand, based on measurements taken from a pipe used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910). At the heart of the series sits a single object: a Peterson held in the collection of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal, Missouri, its bowl thinned by long use.

The Pipe in the Museum

Exactly how Twain came to know the brand is not certain. Those who study the brand's history consider his stay in Vienna, from late 1897 to spring 1899, a likely starting point; Irish-made patent pipes were on sale in the city's tobacconists in those years. Photographs showing Twain with a patent Peterson are also dated to shortly after the turn of the century. The stamps on the museum piece's silver band are said to give the year 1896; this reading rests on sources within the pipe-collecting community and has not been confirmed by the museum or by manufacturer publications. The bowl shape, meanwhile, is traced to a form listed as number 14 in the brand's early catalogs and discontinued in the early 1900s.

What draws the most comment about the pipe today is its wear: the bowl walls have thinned from long use. This shows the object was not a display piece but genuinely a working item that had been smoked through.