Friday, October 31, 2014

Something Even Cooler Than the Cap

Michael McNeil emailed me awhile ago to ask me if I might be interested in a hard rubber pencil with a cap. When he sent me the pictures to clarify, there wasn’t any question that I’d be interested in it, and we entered into one our strange negotiations in which he asks what I think it’s worth, I tell him, he says that’s too much, and we finally settle on a price that’s the most he will accept and the least I’m willing to pay:


No, I won’t show you a picture of it with the cap on, because it is really, really, REALLY tight, and I was on pins and needles gently rocking it back and forth to get it off there for this picture without cracking it. The capped pencil idea is one that never really took off: the idea grew out of Cross’ bread-and-butter business of making stylographic pens, which really did need caps. It was a great way to kill two birds with one stone, providing for the more efficient use of hard rubber parts on hand as well as providing us with one of the only vintage pencils out there with a cap.

But that’s not the cool part.

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Thursday, October 30, 2014

I'm Feeling a Little Bit Exposed

A couple weeks ago, Janet and I decided to stop by the Springfield Antique Show at at the Clark County Fairgrounds. The cold, drizzly weather had most of the outdoor vendors covering up their wares with tarps, so we spent most of our time browsing around inside. I didn’t find much indoors, but by the time we started wandering back to the parking lot to leave, the weather had eased a bit and a few brave dealers had uncovered their tables – including the one who had this on his table:


What makes this one is the exposed eraser. Although the usual solid-color Sheaffer utility pencils always have them, they are quite a rarity on the Balance line . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Matryoshka Herring

There was something in yesterday’s article that I promised I would get back to, and yet I didn’t. It concerned an offhand remark that the pencils advertised by Dunn & Rodenberg in 1919:


Bore more of a resemblance to these pencils, made by the American Lead Pencil Company of New York:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Red Herring

Note: this story grew out of research for yesterday’s article on the "Ever-Rite."

Out of these four "Ever-Rite" pencils, one is marked "patent pending," the other three are marked "Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.," and all four are made using DeWitt-LaFrance patterns and Walter Sheaffer’s mechanism, which was patented in November, 1918:


The "Reg. U.S. Pat. Off." legend indicated that a trademark had been filed for the brand, which led me to this registration:


Following up on the M.S. Rodenberg Company took me in a surprising and entirely different direction. Milton S. Rodenberg was a jeweler by trade. Prior to the formation of the M.S. Rodenberg Company, he was engaged in business in a partnership named Dunn & Rodenberg. The earliest reference I found to Dunn & Rodenberg was a listing in the 1907 Rhode Island Report of the Commissioner of Labor, showing that the firm was located at 14 Blount Street in Providence.

But Dunn didn’t always have top billing . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Monday, October 27, 2014

The Evidence Continues to Build

The other day, as I was getting caught up on taking some pictures, I found myself looking for a pencil I just knew I last saw right over . . . there . . .ish. I don’t know what made me think that it might have been in this box, because I remembered it didn’t come with one, but that didn’t stop me from opening this up and forgetting completely what I was looking for:


This was in a drawer with other stuff I found at the Chicago Pen Show last May, and I remember I saw it late in the show on my good friend Presnall Wood’s table. Presnall is a great guy to talk to, and I know as usual I must have stopped to chat with him a dozen times or more over the course of the weekend, but whether I had been too wrapped up in talking with him or whether he had just pulled this set out from under his table late in the show, I hadn’t noticed it before.

I’d bought plenty that weekend, including other things from Presnall, and I wasn’t showing much interest in the set – after all, it included one of those pesky pens I don’t have much use for. Yet for whatever reason, Presnall was determined not to take it home with him. I don’t remember what his offer was, but I do remember that it was one I was powerless to refuse.


Now, in light of some research here at the blog, I’m glad I didn’t.

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Sunday, October 26, 2014

Speaking of Autopoint . . .

When one of these oversized Autopoints comes along, the prices they usually command are high enough that it’s one of the more serious Autopoint guys (such as my father) who beats me to them. This time, at the DC show, none of the Autopoint guys were in sight when this one came my way:


This one has green gold trim and dates to around 1927 or so. It’s hard enough to find one of these in condition as nice as this – harder still to find one in the box . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Saturday, October 25, 2014

Another Horse of a Familiar Color

Here’s another great color:


This is another one of what I call the Rite-Rite "Torpedo" pencils.

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Friday, October 24, 2014

Testing for Idiots . . . And The Results Came Back Positive

I know the title of this article is a bit harsh, but I’m still mad about this one. The story began when this popped up in an online auction a few months ago:


"Pop" is a great word to use – the artistry that went into making this is simply breathtaking. This one is a combo, and that band around the middle is the slide that advances the nib. There wasn’t a nib in this one, but I’ll find one eventually.


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Thursday, October 23, 2014

A Fine Pencil . . . In My Esti-Mation

This one is a little newer than the pencils I typically go for, but when I saw it in an online auction, I knew I just had to have it.


The pencil is unmarked with the exception of the embossing on the barrel end . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Wednesday, October 22, 2014

So Right

In the late 1920s, Eversharp introduced pencils in "bumblebee" plastics (that’s a collector’s nickname, not official Eversharpese, from what I understand). Here’s the teal "bumblebee" I posted here a couple years ago (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/01/no-price-sticker-but-something-even.html):


Since then, I have found an example in yellow, the color from which the nickname more properly originates. In fact, I found a pen and pencil set . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Middle Part is the Best

While I was at the Philadelphia Show last January, this one was cooking in an online auction:


It doesn’t look like much, although the looks of it are pretty cool and I love those colored bands. Even so, this one would have slipped right under my radar and probably under everyone else’s too had the seller not correctly read and included the imprint . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Monday, October 20, 2014

Son of Bug

A little more than a year ago, I posted an article here called "The Bug" ( http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-bug.html ) about a variant of Brown and Bigelow’s metal Redipoint pencils sporting the most unusual way to store lead that I’d ever seen:


Ever since I wrote that article, whenever I encounter one of these metal Redipoint pencils, I can’t help myself. I’ve got to unscrew the top and pull out the mechanism to see if it has the bug’s antennae inside. A few months ago, as I was going through a drawer full of pencils I forgot I had, I found a couple more of them, and so of course I was compelled to see if they were "buggy." That’s when I started poking and prodding at this one:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Sunday, October 19, 2014

Cherry In More Ways Than One

My friend Joe Nemecek picked this one up at the Philadelphia Show last January:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Saturday, October 18, 2014

Somewhere Along the Road to Oblivion

I don’t remember how this one came my way, and I’ve had the picture laying around long enough that I think it’s best I just say what I know and see if someone can help me fill in the blanks:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Friday, October 17, 2014

So Long To Some Old Friends

Note:  this is the last installment in a series of five articles.  The first part was posted here:  http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/10/artfully-to-point.html.

Until recently, I’d never heard of any of the people involved in the Dollar Point Pencil Corporation story. However, there’s been enough written about them that now that I’ve researched these articles I almost feel like I know them, including many details of their lives outside of Dollar Point.

Wade W. Moore, the inventor of the mechanism inside the Artpoint, never patented any other writing instruments or any other inventions, either. When I first started researching this article, I thought that was odd – most inventors with more than one patent don’t just quit. But after I read this historical account of Moore’s life in the 1926 History of Contra Costa County with Biographical Sketches, it made sense:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Thursday, October 16, 2014

The 800-Pound Gorilla

Note:  this is the fourth installment in a series of articles.  The first part was posted here:  http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/10/artfully-to-point.html.

The future of the Dollar Point Pencil Corporation looked bright at the beginning of 1921. The company had a great new pencil mechanism with fantastic styling, protected by both utility and design patents. The company’s factory was turning out 1,000 pencils per day by mid-year, with plans to double production and construct a larger factory to move into as soon as they company’s lease expired. The former West Coast agent for the Eversharp Pencil Company saw promise in the new pencil and negotiated exclusive rights to distribute it, and J.E. Roach & Co. hired an advertising firm in preparation for a big national advertising campaign.

And then, just as the Artpoint pencil was poised to take the country by storm . . .

nothing.

Somewhere along the way, the wheels came off the locomotive just as it was gathering an enormous head of steam, and the Dollar Point Pencil Corporation seemingly evaporated into thin air. How?

Maybe it was just that the timing was bad. The industrial boom of World War I went bust in 1920, and the United States suffered through a short but very steep Depression that lasted through the middle of 1921. Perhaps Dollar Point stretched itself too thin at a critical time, crippling itself with so much up-front debt that the company wasn’t able to pull itself out, even as the economy improved towards the end of 1921.

But there’s also that curious detail in which Jesse E. Roach established a second company which simultaneously claimed to "manufacture" the Artpoint and Dollarpoint pencils. It’s possible that J.E. Roach & Co. and Dollar Point were created for accounting or strategic reasons, one set up to do the actual manufacturing while the other handled marketing and distribution But another possibility is that there was infighting amongst the principals which eventually brought the company down. Jesse E. Roach appeared to have been the only common denominator between the two companies, and all the patents were assigned to him; Dollar Point was headed up by Amadee Taussig, who created the styling for the pencils. Perhaps Roach wasn’t satisfied with the progress his partners were making towards returning his investment, so he decided to take matters into his own hands, setting up J.E. Roach & Co. in order to hijack Dollar Point’s business – that might explain the sudden appearance of the elusive "Western Pencil Company" a couple years later.

But I have another theory, one which would make Occam proud in its simplicity: Dollar Point wrestled with an 800-pound gorilla and lost. In part one of this series, I commented on the obvious similarities between the Artpoint/Dollarpoint pencils and the Eagle Pointer:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

What's Going On In That Phone Booth?

Note:  this is the third installment in a series of articles.  The first part was posted here:  http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/10/artfully-to-point.html.

In 1924, just as brightly colored celluloid pencils were about to render all-metal pencils out of style, the Dollar Point Pencil Corporation and J. E. Roach & Co., both of which claimed to manufacture Artpoint and Dollarpoint brand pencils, apparently vanished. What made these pencils distinctive, in addition to their heavy, durable construction and spot-on styling, was the patented mechanism, invented by Wade W. Moore and assigned to Jesse E. Roach:


I have never heard of or seen an Artpoint or Dollarpoint in celluloid, so one possible explanation for the company’s disappearance is natural extinction - a failure to adapt to the new trend in writing instruments. But then I remembered another brand that I’ve thought about for a long time:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

It Was All In the Names

Note:  this is the second part in a series of articles.  The first part is found here:  http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/10/artfully-to-point.html.

Sometimes all it takes for the pieces of the puzzle to come together is a name. When it comes to the Artpoint and Dollarpoint pencils, yesterday’s article gave us several of them: Wade W. Moore, inventor of the Artpoint and Dollarpoint, Amadee J. Taussig, the pencil’s artistic designer, and Jesse E. Roach, the man to whom both the utility and design patents were assigned. These names, and a few others that turned up in connection with them, were all the ammunition needed to unravel a fairly complete history of the Dollarpoint and Artpoint pencils.

The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer reported the organization of the Dollarpoint Pencil Corporation in its July 1, 1920 issue, identifying the incorporators as J. E. Roach, Wilbur E. Smith and Lester William Roth:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.



Monday, October 13, 2014

Artfully to the Point

Artpoint is a brand that I hoard. If I see one, and it’s reasonably priced, I’ve got to bring it home for closer examination in the hopes that I might find out something more about it:


Here’s an example I picked up recently . . er, comparatively so. I think I found this one at the Chicago show:


To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Sunday, October 12, 2014

This One Elevated My Understanding

A couple weekends ago, I introduced an "unmarked" calendar pencil. Using my powers of deductive reasoning, I had concluded that my pencil must be a Dur-O-Lite:


Soon after that article published, my friend John Coleman emailed me to let me know that he also has a similar pencil . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Saturday, October 11, 2014

Another Voice Joins the Chorus

The longer I do this, the more examples I find of the "Rex patent" pencils, especially those with the "Four Horsemen" patents from 1924 and 1925 imprinted on the cap (see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/03/prequel-lets-make-that-birth-death-and.html ). Today I’m introducing another one:


Who knew Salz Bros. jumped on this?

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.


Friday, October 10, 2014

The Email from March

Note:  this is part two of a series.  Part one is found at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/10/an-entirely-new-take-on-riedell.html

Last March, as all the pieces were falling into place with respect to the Riedell Repeating Pencil and I thought I had a pretty good handle on things, I received an email from a guy named Bob Leslie that set me back on my heels. Bob had been doing a bit of genealogy research, and while he was scouting around for whatever he could find concerning the "Riedell" branch of his family tree, he stumbled across my Mechanical Pencil Museum.

Bob doesn’t collect mechanical pencils, but he already knew more about the Riedell than I did. He indicated that his grandfather, Charles Martin Riedell, was a CPA from New Jersey with offices in New York – and that in the late 1920s, he embarked on a little side venture selling the Riedell Repeating Pencil. Even more exciting was that Bob's grandfather had passed down some of the pencils to his family members, several of whom - including Bob - still had them in their possession!

I replied to Bob quick as a jackrabbit and asked him if any of his family members would be willing to share pictures of what they had with me, and Bob said he’d check with his cousins and let me know. Shortly after that, I started receiving pictures from Lynn Riedell, and I was delighted to see that in addition to Riedell pencils, the family also kept this great advertising sign:



Lynn also shared with me pictures of some of the pencils he has – the largest spread of Riedell Repeating Pencils I’ve ever seen, in fact . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.