On my first visit to the Peterson factory in 2009, I fell into a conversation about the stand-out pipes in Peterson’s long history with then-factory manager Tony Whelan, Sr. and silversmith David Blake, since retired. They began a back-and-forth litany of the pipes they felt were truly important in the time they’d been working there. Their list began with the 1975 Centenary pipes.

1975 was an incredible year for Peterson, a high-water mark not seen since the 1910s: pipe sales were going through the roof, the company had a new factory out in what was then the countryside of Dún Laoghaire (the workers played football in the field behind it for many years), and they were celebrating what they thought of as their 100^th anniversary.

As part of that celebration, the company released the first of its true commemorative pipes—the 1875 – 1975 Centenary issues. Unsmoked and with their…