Thursday, November 1, 2012

One Wild Goose Chase

Today’s story started for me a few weeks ago when I found this pencil at the Springfield Antique Show.  When I pulled it out of a dollar junk box, I thought it was probably a Presto that I could use for parts. However, my expectations were exceeded when I looked at it more closely:  "Selfeed Made in USA Reg.U.S.Pat.Off." Now that’s different!  Here it is next to what I normally think of when it comes to an oversized Selfeed . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company




1 comment:

George Kovalenko said...

Way to go, Jon. The number 196,095 is only the filing number, or what the USPTO called the Serial No. You have to go to the USPTO trademark search page to look for the trademark number, or what the USPTO called the Registration No. The only problem is that the USPTO added a prefix of two digits to the 6-digit Serial No. to make it 8 digits long, and if you don't know those two digits, you're stuck again. The best bet is to visit your local USPTO depository library and get them to look up that Serial No. to get the corresponding Registration No. It looks like the trademark number is somewhere between 178,000 and 193,000.

George.