Saturday, December 19, 2015

Just a Few Last Conklins . . . For Now

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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This whole series of articles about Conklins over the past week started with a little spring cleaning in my hard drive, gathering up all the pictures I’ve been shooting of Conklins over the last couple years and finally getting around to posting something about them.   All but a few fit very neatly into the articles I’ve already posted, but there were a few which didn’t.  Here’s a great Symetrik, I suppose . . . from the era during which it’s hard to tell without a matching pen alongside it to say whether it went with a Symetrik lever-filler or a Nozac:


Since I’ve never seen a Conklin with a Crescent above a Mooney clip, that’s what makes me think this is part of the Symetrik line:


These next two are probably a year or two later:


Both have the Mooney patent date clips with the crescent above the patent number:


Besides the cool bronze and green color, that one has an imprint which really speaks to me:


I feel like I’m playing “Clue.”  The Leadhead was bowled over . . . by the color . . . and a date of 1936 . . . with the Toledo Blade sponsorship . . . on a Conklin.   Add “by Colonel Mustard” at the end and it couldn’t be any more perfect.

Note that the other one has a Toledo imprint as well, and it is also kind of an odd, sickly color:


What’s really odd about this one is what that color looks like when you shine a light through it:


I’m not sure whether those brown lines were once clear, or whether someone was just using up some weird rod stock.

These last two are a pair only a Conklin collector could love:


John Hall had this set at the Ohio Show a couple years ago, and I just felt compelled to bring it home.  This is one of the latest Chicago Conklin products, but what can I say . . .


The imprint is still pretty nice, and the plastic – even though it was pretty cheap stuff – is in a neat color I haven’t seen on a Conklin before.

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