An Easy Cleanup of a Peterson’s Deluxe 87S Straight Apple

I stumbled across this Peterson’s Deluxe Apple in a rack of four pipes on display at a local antique fair a few months ago. Apart from a fairly heavy crust of lava on the crowned rim and a bit of grime on the stem, the pipe was in excellent estate condition. It should be an easy cleanup.

The pipe is stamped “Peterson’s” over “Deluxe” on the right shank, and “Made in the” over “Republic” over “of Ireland” on the left shank, along with a shape number, “87S”. The saddle stem carries the Peterson “P” logo on the left flank.

There’s not much to go on to establish a date for this pipe. The COM stamp tells us that the pipe was made post-1949 when Ireland became a Republic – useful in establishing a baseline date, but not particularly helpful in narrowing down a production era. Based on the lack of shank band and the square-edged saddle stem, though, I’d guess this 87S Apple left the Peterson factory sometime in the 1970’s. If anyone can clarify my guesstimate, please chime in!

I did my usual Oxyclean soak on the stem to dissolve the grease and grime and raise any oxidation to the surface. There was very little oxidation on this stem, so a scrub with Magic Eraser was all that was necessary to bring it back to its original black colour. A few pipe cleaners dipped in alcohol made sure that the airway was free of tars and other contaminants. Remarkably, despite the pipe’s obvious past use, the stem was completely free of tooth dents or chatter.

The old cake came away easily with the Castleford reamer and a bit of sandpaper. I then removed the crust of lava from the rim of the bowl with an alcohol-soaked cotton pad. I normally use the blade of my pen knife to expedite this process, but it would have been too easy to damage the briar on this crowned rim. When I had most of the crust off, I finished cleaning the rim with a piece of fine sanding sponge. Even without any further cleaning, this Peterson already looks much improved!

Given the amount of lava on the rim, I wasn’t surprised to find that the shank and airway were also quite dirty. It took a while to scrape and scrub the internals clean.

I forgot to take pictures of the next steps in this cleanup, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I gave the stummel a salt/alcohol treatment to clean and deodorize the shank and airway and finished working on the briar by polishing the stummel with micromesh pads to erase the sanding marks on the rim and bring up the shine.

When all was set, I took the pipe to the buffer for a run of White Diamond compound and several coats of Carnauba wax.

This older Peterson Deluxe 87S Apple is looking much refreshed and is ready to serve a new piper for many years to come. The briar, free of fills or flaws as one might expect from a pipe labelled “Deluxe”, shows some attractive grain. It’s rich, natural honey-brown colour contrasts nicely with the smooth glossy black of the stem.

If you’d like to add this Peterson Deluxe to your rack and rotation, it is available now on the DadsPipes Store.

Thanks for joining me. Until next time, Happy Piping!

Here’s the finished pipe.