Peterson Aran Shape 15 Smooth Straight Billiard, Fishtail — Undetermined Modern Era

This reference example is a Peterson Aran in the maker's shape 15, a smooth-finished straight billiard fitted with a fishtail mouthpiece, documented as an Irish estate pipe. The straight billiard is the foundational form of the pipe-maker's repertoire: a cylindrical bowl set at a right angle to a straight shank of roughly equal length, prized for its balance, its clean geometry, and its status as the benchmark against which other shapes are measured. In Peterson's catalogue the shape number 15 identifies this particular rendering of the billiard within the firm's standardized shape chart. The fishtail designation matters within the Peterson context precisely because it distinguishes the pipe from the firm's signature P-Lip: here the smoke is delivered through a conventional horizontal slot at the button. The Aran series occupies a place among Peterson's smooth-finished lines of the modern era, presenting natural grain under a clear or lightly stained finish without metal adornment as its defining trait. Dating a Peterson presents a particular challenge that makes the marque instructive for the archive: the factory has never employed a date-code system of the kind used by Dunhill. Chronology is instead established through the wording of the country-of-manufacture stamp — the progression from 'Made in Ireland' forms through 'Made in the Republic of Ireland' — read alongside line names and shape-chart history. On the evidence available, this example is placed honestly within the late twentieth to early twenty-first century, the production window of the Aran line.