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Pipe smoking in fiction (novels, TV, movies)

Kilroy6644

Smoking a corn dog in aviators and a top hat
They're not outstanding literature, but they're fun, and a good way to pass the time. And pipes are everywhere.

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Great read, @luvmysuper! Thanks. I have an estate 309 that, while smokable as is, could use a good clean, buff and polish of the oxidized P lip stem.
What modern Peterson model comes close to the 4AB Rathbone used in the films? SP doesn't have any result for a search of "Peterson 4AB." I guess the firm has changed its model designations in almost 80 years.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
What modern Peterson model comes close to the 4AB Rathbone used in the films? SP doesn't have any result for a search of "Peterson 4AB." I guess the firm has changed its model designations in almost 80 years.
The Peterson 2021 POTY is supposed to be a re-release of the 4ab, they only made 500, so not readily available right now. I don't know if there is a regular model number, but it's shown here:
 
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Kilroy6644

Smoking a corn dog in aviators and a top hat
What modern Peterson model comes close to the 4AB Rathbone used in the films? SP doesn't have any result for a search of "Peterson 4AB." I guess the firm has changed its model designations in almost 80 years.
Well, the shape went by different designations depending on which line it was in. Most commonly shape 4 (hence the 4AB; 4 is the shape, and AB refers to that specific stem), or shape 309. The bad news is that this shape has been discontinued for several years. That's part of the reason this year's POTY went so fast. Shape 313 is the same, but smaller, and it won't have the AB stem. I've heard of people custom ordering stems, but I don't know where from. Your best bet would be to scour ebay for a 309.
 
Well, the shape went by different designations depending on which line it was in. Most commonly shape 4 (hence the 4AB; 4 is the shape, and AB refers to that specific stem), or shape 309. The bad news is that this shape has been discontinued for several years. That's part of the reason this year's POTY went so fast. Shape 313 is the same, but smaller, and it won't have the AB stem. I've heard of people custom ordering stems, but I don't know where from. Your best bet would be to scour ebay for a 309.
I've had a look at estate Petersons there. Everybody who throws up a vintage Peterson for sale or bid takes dark lousy pictures, so it's hard to tell what I'd be getting. A 313 looks enough like the 4AB for me, and smaller is good; I already have a 307 from the '80s. SP has some smooth and sandblast 313s, if I am really determined on one.
 

Kilroy6644

Smoking a corn dog in aviators and a top hat
I've had a look at estate Petersons there. Everybody who throws up a vintage Peterson for sale or bid takes dark lousy pictures, so it's hard to tell what I'd be getting. A 313 looks enough like the 4AB for me, and smaller is good; I already have a 307 from the '80s. SP has some smooth and sandblast 313s, if I am really determined on one.
I was just browsing there, and I saw the Army Filter 338. I think it would be a great choice. There's a very strong resemblance to the 4AB. It's noticably smaller, but the general lines are the same.
 
I just caught 2 scenes of pipe smoking in John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn. First, Arthur Kennedy as Doc Holliday puffs on a straight bulldog during a poker game with Jimmy Stewart and John Carradine (one of Ford's trademark comic scenes inserted in his dramatic films). A few minutes later, a shopkeeper, actor unknown, steps out of his shop, puffing on a straight billiard.

ETA: We see the shopkeeper with billiard in teeth again later w/ Mike Mazurki. And character actor Kevin McCarthy as a US Army soldier smokes a bent billiard that looks a lot like a Peterson in an indoor scene. I'm beginning to think Ford was a pipe smoker!
 
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Another Lee Van Cleef + pipe: Barquero from 1970. He smokes what looks like a well-bent Peterson, a smooth version of the Holmesian model Basil Rathbone often used in the SH films. There is certainly a nickel collar, possibly a military mount. And it's not really an anachronism, since Petersons existed in the time of the Old West, right?

Looks like an interesting movie -- a American film, unlike the Italian flicks LvC starred in during the late '60s. Warren Oates plays the antagonist and Forrest Tucker is Lee's ally.
 
Another Lee Van Cleef + pipe: Barquero from 1970. He smokes what looks like a well-bent Peterson, a smooth version of the Holmesian model Basil Rathbone often used in the SH films. There is certainly a nickel collar, possibly a military mount. And it's not really an anachronism, since Petersons existed in the time of the Old West, right?

Looks like an interesting movie -- a American film, unlike the Italian flicks LvC starred in during the late '60s. Warren Oates plays the antagonist and Forrest Tucker is Lee's ally.
What looks like the same pipe turns up in the James Coburn-Telly Savalas Italian Western A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972). Neither of the leads smokes it, rather a minor villain, I think, but it is still an obvious Holmes-style Peterson with the nickel mount and bent stem.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
Let us not forget an Iconic fictional hero who smoked a pipe, and has been providing entertainment for us since 1929. Conceived and modeled after real life characters in Chester, Illinois (my home state).

The one and only Popeye the Sailor.

Though he started small, he worked his way from the daily comic strip for King Features into syndicated cartoons.
He has been pictured on virtually any merchandising object you could care to imagine, and eventually he was portrayed by the inimitable Robin Williams in a feature film.

As far as his pipe - he obviously smokes a cob, and even a cursory look shows his pipe to be a straight corn cob pipe with a barrel shaped bowl and a very slim one piece shank/stem, rather than a separate shank and stem such as found on the Missouri Meerschaums.

Here he is with pipe in cartoon format:

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And here are stills from the film with Robin Williams where they managed to emulate the cartoon pipe:
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In honor of a fellow pipe smoking sailor from my home state, I found it necessary to find a pipe which Popeye himself would be proud to smoke. I found one in the Old Dominion Laughing King Indian Corn Cob Pipe:

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I already have cans of spinach in the pantry.
I'll let you know if Bluto gives me any grief about it.
 
I hate to admit this, but I've never seen *all* of the famous Clint Eastwood flick The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's on Grit right now. About an hour into the film, Lee van Cleef as a Union Army sergeant brings out and lights what looks like the same Peterson he used several years later in Barquero. Possibly it was one of his own pipes.

This time, though, a Peterson is something of an anachronism. GBU is set toward the end of the U.S. Civil War, and the Peterson firm only got its start in London in 1865. Highly unlikely that one of their pipes could have made it across the Atlantic that early. And from the Pipedia article, apparently the original firm was making meerschaums; briars came later?
 
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Let us not forget an Iconic fictional hero who smoked a pipe, and has been providing entertainment for us since 1929. Conceived and modeled after real life characters in Chester, Illinois (my home state).

The one and only Popeye the Sailor.

Though he started small, he worked his way from the daily comic strip for King Features into syndicated cartoons.
He has been pictured on virtually any merchandising object you could care to imagine, and eventually he was portrayed by the inimitable Robin Williams in a feature film.

As far as his pipe - he obviously smokes a cob, and even a cursory look shows his pipe to be a straight corn cob pipe with a barrel shaped bowl and a very slim one piece shank/stem, rather than a separate shank and stem such as found on the Missouri Meerschaums.

Here he is with pipe in cartoon format:

View attachment 1401712View attachment 1401713

And here are stills from the film with Robin Williams where they managed to emulate the cartoon pipe:
View attachment 1401714View attachment 1401715

In honor of a fellow pipe smoking sailor from my home state, I found it necessary to find a pipe which Popeye himself would be proud to smoke. I found one in the Old Dominion Laughing King Indian Corn Cob Pipe:

View attachment 1401717


I already have cans of spinach in the pantry.
I'll let you know if Bluto gives me any grief about it.
As soon as I saw Old Dominions I knew instantly which was Popeye's. And Grandma Turner in Outlaw Josey Wales. And, let's face it, every movie or show where someone is smoking a corn cob pipe. One cob with a reed stem. I had one, but the draw was so restrictive I had to puff like a freight train to get anything. I loved the design enough to be willing to try another of I were ever to hear good things about them (or anything really).
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
As soon as I saw Old Dominions I knew instantly which was Popeye's. And Grandma Turner in Outlaw Josey Wales. And, let's face it, every movie or show where someone is smoking a corn cob pipe. One cob with a reed stem. I had one, but the draw was so restrictive I had to puff like a freight train to get anything. I loved the design enough to be willing to try another of I were ever to hear good things about them (or anything really).
I'll let you know how this one goes. I got a straight Missouri Meerschaum as a back up just in case.
 
When I first read Cannery Row (1945) by John Steinbeck in the '80s, I had no idea of tobacco blends beyond the drugstore packets, which I didn't try, and the Tinder Box blends at the mall. So this reference slipped past me. In his description of Lee Chong's Grocery, fairly early in the novel, Steinbeck lists many of the things you can buy there, and includes "The Five Brothers." For all I knew then, Five Brothers was an inexpensive wine like Mad Dog 20/20 or Gallo Hearty Burgundy. JS does not mention what it is, but the brand has been around a long time, yes?
 
There are a lot of pipes being carried and clenched in The Wolf Man (1941). Patric Knowles as the gamekeeper and Ralph Bellamy as the local constable both have big black sandblast-looking straights. I can't say as I ever saw anybody actually puffing, though.
 
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