No Price Sticker, But Something Even Better

There's two very distinct types of joy antique dealers experience when they make a sale at a show:  the joy of making a buck, and the joy of helping another collector find something that makes them happy.   Other than a few people who set up at a show just to dispose of a dead relative's collection, everyone you find sitting behind a table at a show is doing what we do for both kinds of joy, getting a little ying in with the yang, so to speak.

Rick Fernandez is a pen (and pencil) dealer who never loses sight of this -- he loves the charge he gets out of helping you find the things you like.  At the 2010 Ohio show, he and Mike Bloom split up a set and sold me the Eclipse red hard rubber pencil which appears second from left on the cover of my book.  At the DC show a few months later, he sold me the Dunn multicolor pencil which is also on the cover of my book, right next to the Eclipse.

At the Ohio Show this year, he had something special to show me.  He waited until the very end of the show to finally part with it.  I'm not sure if he wanted that last rush at the end of the show or wanted to be sure he had gas money!

By the end of the show, I had the pencil and Rick had a fair amount of my money and the knowledge that he had simply made my day.  I told him about my plans to launch this blog, and he told me he was really looking forward to reading about his pencil. 

A couple weeks ago I was talking to him, and he mentioned he hadn't seen a blog entry on his pencil yet.  Sheepishly, I told him that hadn't gotten to it, and he sounded . . . disappointed.  So, without further ado, with all due credit to Rick for the find and with due apologies for the delay, here's today's subject . . .

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