Proto pipe History
In 1968, Phil Jergenson had one of those Eureka moments a few months after his first puff of cannabis. Gadgets were in—James Bond had them, how about one for us? He crafted a special pipe designed to do only one thing perfectly: smoke! A pipe designed with the right tools, like a poker, a permanent screen, and a cleanable tar trap. And just to make it the ultimate pipe, how about a storage pod? His mind took off with the ideas, and in 1971, he moved to San Francisco to the Mission District to chase his pipe dream.
The first pipe was called the smoking Contrivance, but after a year spent trying to scale up and have consistent production, it failed to materialize. Desperate for money, Phil got a carpenter job and placed an ad in the Rolling Stone Magazine in 1972. A few months later, his brother Kent called to say his post office box was stuffed with orders, so he made pipes on the weekend to fulfill orders, but kept the carpenter job until he could move to pipe production full time a year later.
In 1973, Phil made a batch of pipes using a gas generator for power and took them to Berkeley’s Telegraph Ave, becoming a street artist who made enough to put a roof over his head. His brother Richard joined me from Denver, and he began street sales in SF. Richard made the second Contrivance pipe, specifically made for a left-hander. The contrivance was selling well, but as it gained public attention trouble began. When a competitor stole my design and bad imitations popped up in headshops all over the Bay Area, it woke Phil up to the fact that the name Contrivance was pretty stupid, but the pipe design was a keeper.
Longing for the country, and with Ronald Reagan’s War On Drugs raging on, Phil and Richard moved out of the Berekley warehouse and settled in a town called Willits. They bought a warehouse on Franklin Ave, but were targeted and harassed by the local authorities, so they turned the business over to a friend who rebranded the product as a tobacco pipe. The agreement allowed Phil to rejoin the company when legalization was imminent. Proto Pipe was run successfully for a few decades but declined when the internet became the retail powerhouse it is today.
In 2014, Phil created a new generation of his classic design along with his girlfriend, Bess. Improvements included a round bowl, a roach clip on the top lid, a bottom swivel lid, and a knurled collar. He kept the best qualities of the old Proto and improved on the outdated. Thus the Mendo was born, later renamed the Rocket. Today the original team is back together in that warehouse on Franklin Ave. With new patents, pipes, team members, and a web presence, Proto Pipe’s 50-year legacy is looking into a bright future.
