Resurrection.

Resurrection.

A few months ago,I was following an E-bay auction for a great old notable Peterson 1910 Patent Bulldog, which interested me. Unfortunately the auction was suddenly terminated, with several days to go the pipe was pulled.
I found this most frustrating as I considered it a prime target for its rarity, in that it had a rare and unusual stem made from a translucent reddish- brown like material, that was marketed in that early period as 'Redmanol'. A very limited number of Peterson's had stems made from this material and they marketed them under the name Amberoid.

Having had dealings in the past with the seller Gary Malmberg,who probably owns the world's greatest collection of Peterson Patent and Pre-Republic pipes. I contacted him and asked if he would consider 'a buy it now price' which was mutually acceptable. Gary quickly replied and told me the sad tale ,that he had been showing the pipe to a friend and had dropped the pipe and broken the stem into several pieces. He immediately withdrew the pipe from auction.
As luck would have it,Gary kindly agreed to gift me the pipe for restoration as a display piece for my humble 'Sandpiper Peterson Museum'.

After a few days,the pipe duly arrived and a cursory inspection as per the photo above showed the main damage. The bone screw insert was a spare replacement, which Garry thought might be useful in any repair and restoration that might be carried out. In considering this I was aware that the damage was so bad that I had doubts as to whether it could be restored without still showing obvious signs of damage and chips. The Redmanol was/is a very brittle material,plus the original bone screw insert was missing and the 'spare' did not fit without the possibility of further adaptation being needed to the bowl. There was no way that I could have carried out the necessary restoration,so I decided to send the Pipe to Peterson and ask if the pipe could be restored to it's former glory.

In due course Peterson contacted me to say that they could not source a replacement 'Redmanol' stem. After prolonged discussion, I agreed to them creating a new Cumberland replacement,this being the nearest modern equivalent material and true to the original colour stem. I asked for the original stem parts to be returned. Considering that I might just glue the pieces together and keep it for posterity as a reminder of the original stem material.The photo below shows the pipe with it's new Cumberland stem. I am very pleased with the finished work and happy to include it in the 'Museum'.