Jim Rouse's Cross Collection

One of the first things Joe Nemecek said to me at the Ohio Show, last November, as I was unveiling The Catalogue, was that my book should have had more Cross.

He's right.   Since 99.9 percent of what's in the book are the things in my personal collection, and I only had two Cross pencils in my collection, I honestly forgot to include the maker until the last minute.  The A.T. Cross Company ended up taking a back seat, appearing on page 175 in the "Just a Couple More" section, which I wrote literally the day before the book went to press.

Everything I said in the book is absolutely true.  Cross is one of the oldest and most established manufacturers of pencils -- true.  Cross pencils are very high in quality and construction -- true.

And most collectors breeze right by them without a second thought, because in general most of the ones you see all look alike -- ok, you can send me all the hate mail you want, but you know it's true.

That's most of the ones you see.  I knew there were guys out there who had spent years accumulating examples of the brand that you don't see all the time and could teach me more about Cross in a couple hours than I would be able to learn in the next decade of picking through flea markets and pen shows.

Guys like Jim Rouse.  Jim was at the Ohio Show, but I had not made his acquaintance yet and even though Joe told me he had his entire Cross collection with him, I wasn't able to get away from my table long enough to spend some time with him.   

The Baltimore Show, however, was another story.  Joe introduced us on Saturday and I asked if I could bring back a camera to document his collection on Sunday morning.  Jim agreed, so early on Sunday morning, before most of the dealers were in the ballroom, My camera and I spent some quality time with Jim's portfolio of vintage Cross pencils . . .

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Lakeside

Lakeside, one of Montgomery Ward's store brands, appears on page 94 of The Catalogue.   This one turned up recently at an online auction.  I really like the clips on these . . .

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The Big Bumblebees

A few weeks ago, when Joe Nemecek was weighing in on wafers (March 4), he had sent me this picture, throwing in to the shot the two bumblebee pattern dollar pencils at the top of the picture.

At the Baltimore show, Joe asked me at one point why I'd turned down that red bumblebee dollar pencil like the one he had.  The answer was simple:  I missed it.  Thanks to Joe, I swung back around and picked it up.  While it was a little rough when I bought it, after a little love and attention it's looking pretty good now . . .

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A Saturday Night Special

I live in a town small enough that when someone does something as odd as write a book on mechanical pencils, it's front page news.  It's also small enough that when the front page of the local paper had my picture on it holding a copy of my new book, people were surprised that they didn't already know one of their neighbors had a stash of thousands of mechanical pencils.

My in-laws have a family friend named Jerry who has known my wife literally since the day she was born, and he's known me since I first started hanging around my wife.  He and my father-in-law joined the local Elks lodge decades ago, and I see him regularly on Saturday nights when Janet and I go down for the weekly drawing -- usually at the same table, usually in the same chairs.  When it's not the same table or the same chairs, that itself is a topic of conversation.  It's a comfort thing, I suppose.

"I never knew you collected pencils," he said to me after the article appeared in the paper.  "I've got some I'll bring down to you to see what you think."

That much I've heard from dozens of people since the book came out.  Only a couple actually followed through and appeared on my doorstep, and Jerry was one of them.  He had a pretty nice bunch of things, and I paid him well for them -- after all, if I didn't pay more than fair prices for the things he brought me, that would really be a topic of conversation on Saturday nights.

Here's one of the things he brought me . . .

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Shaw-Barton: the Inside Connection

On page 8 of The Catalogue, I illustrate a couple of pencils that were given to me by a friend, Ellen McCoy, who found them in her mother's desk drawer after her mother passed.

What I didn't know at the time the book was printed was that both Ellen's mother, Della Hall, as well as her father Lauress, both worked for Shaw Barton in the 1940s.  At that time, Shaw Barton was the major employer in Coshocton County.  Since I knew my friend grew up in Coshocton, I guess it shouldn't have surprised me to find out that my friend's parents worked there. 

But it did surprise me when Ellen showed up on my doorstep with a couple other pieces of Shaw Barton memorabilia . . .

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Shaw-Barton Gets Its Due

Shaw-Barton, Inc. was founded in 1940 by a group of investors led by Jay S. Shaw, who formed the company and purchased the calendar and specialty advertising division of The American Art Works in Coshocton, Ohio.

You would think, since Coshocton is only about 30 miles from where I live, that I would have illustrated an extensive group of them in The Catalogue.  Unfortuantely, if you turn to page 134, there's a picture of one lonely example.  I just didn't have any on hand at the time I wrote the book. 

Shaw-Bartons don't get a lot of attention.  They're often written off as "only" advertising pencils, and usually they turn up in dollar boxes at flea markets.  But for what they are, they really are well made, and since the book was written I've made more of an effort to put together a better selection of the different varieties that are out there.

Here's what I've found so far . . .

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There's Something Fishy About This Sheaffer

Ah, another fuzzy ebay picture, another irresponsible bid by yours truly.  I should probably do more articles on all the dumb chances I've taken that didn't pan out, because believe me -- they don't all turn out this well.  What made me bite was the wider band.  But on closer examination, I noticed that the clip lacked any markings . . .

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Dawn of the Fingertip - and Beyond

The other day I introduced a brown and grey striated Mastercraft, with lettering on the clip that was "twisted" sideways. 

Well, there were actually two brown and grey Mastercraft pencils in that lot, and the other one was even more unusual.  While the lettering runs horizontally on this one, as I would expect . . .

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The Mastercraft's Little Brother

On page 102, frame 9 of The Catalogue, I've pictured what I call "Later Mastercraft style pencils.  Notice how closely the bottom example resembles the Mastercraft I discussed a couple days ago?

I'm not sure whether these were produced as a different, lower product line contemporaneously with the Mastercraft series, or whether they were a later and lower quality version of the Mastercraft line.  Recently, I've found a couple more of these . . .

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One More Mastercraft . . . With a "Twist"

I found this one in one of those fuzzy ebay pictures and bought it for the color.  But when it arrived, there was something a little different about the clip . . .

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A Couple More Masterful Mastercrafts

In the late 1930s, Moore introduced the "Mastercraft" series of pencils (and pens).  Here's a picture taken from page 102 of The Catalogue.

They generally fall into two categories:  the ones on the left have two bands, mid-lower barrel and mid-upper barrel, while those on the right have a single center band. 

I wish I could say today that I've found a short brown one to match the one third from left.  Nope.  But I did find a couple neat center band examples.  For starters, I did find a large brown snakeskin patterned example to match that short one in the center . . .

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This One Doesn't Quite Fit In

I spotted this one in an online auction recently and had to bring it home, since it's different from any other Moore I've run across.   The color isn't like any other Moore I've seen, and the flattop design in combination with a press clip is very unusual.  I'd date this one to the mid-1930s and it strongly resembles some Belmont models sold in Rexall stores (Moore, among other manufacturers, had a contract to supply pencils under the Belmont name) . . .

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A Step Up? From the Moore Clip?

There's a common theme to the story of most writing instrument manufacturers in the United States:  most companies produced higher-quality products early on, which deteriorated over the years until the company either closed or was sold.   I attribute this trend to the advent of the ballpoint pen, which popularized the notion of the disposable writing instrument after World War II and made the production of quality writing instruments less and less profitable. 

Whatever the cause, it's depressing.

When it comes to Moore, the story is similar.  Moore's high water mark was in the early 1930s, and while the company continued to produce new and interesting pencils up until the company's doors shut in 1956, the quality of the products produced by the company in those later years just wasn't the same. 

Generally. 

Exhibit A for the case of product debasement at Moore was the company's abandonment of the distinctive looped "Moore Clip" sometime in the mid- to late 1930s, which was replaced with conventional "press clips" that were simply stapled into the barrel. 

But let's not be too fast in writing off the press clip Moores- there's some pretty nice ones out there!  A few examples are pictured on page 101 of The Catalogue . . .

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Moore-ish

Liddell's 1925 patent design for Moore was robust, reliable and attractive - so it's no surprise that the company kept the series in production into the early 1930s.  But after Sheaffer launched the streamlined Balance series in 1929, boxy flattops became obsolete practically overnight and Moore, like all other manufacturers, suddenly felt the pressure to modernize its product line. 

Moore responded with pencils that were more conventionally designed than the Liddell patent examples.  Here's a picture of some, taken from page 101 of The Catalogue . . .

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Liddell's 1922 and 1925 Patent Moores

The earliest Moore pencils (other than the ACFAD I introduced here last December) were designed by John Liddell and patented on August 15, 1922. I've pictured a group of them on page 100 of The Catalogue, but I lamented at the time that I only had one example in all metal, and it was a ringtop.  I was able to cure that problem at the Baltimore Show. 

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Stepping out in Style

I've got a couple of these "Stylecrafts" pictured on page 154 of The Catalogue.  I didn't know much about the company that made them, only that in later years, the company also produced the unique little magnetic "Stik" pencils.  This one is a full size, traditional nose drive pencil, except the logo on the clip is a little different . . .

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If a Bird Opens its Eyes at Night, Does Anyone See it?

Does this look familiar?  When it showed up in an online auction, I was hoping no one else would think so, but I ended up paying a fair price for it (as Rob Bader would say, I was hoping to pay an unfair price).

This is actually one of the WASP (W. A. Sheaffer Pen) "Birdseye" series.  Here it is shown alongside one that isn't black . . .

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A Common Color Maybe, But Not on This

Here's another one that I breezed right past a couple times on ebay, until I thought a bit more about it and decided to bring it home.  This color turns up on thousands of pencils.  This time, it was on an example of the Parker "Premiere" pencil .  Collectors usually refer to these as"Thrift Time" or "Depression" pencils, but Parker actually referred to the ones like this with the flat metal top cap as the "Moderne" (smaller size) and "Premiere" (large size) models.

Part of the reason I blew past this one was that I thought I already had one.  But after I thought about it, I remembered that the one I had was a little different from this . . .

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The Parker Empire Cap

In general, the Parker 51 bores me.  There, I said it.  I know it's heretical, but I just can't get into them.

It just seems like there's millions out there that are all pretty much the same, all with dark colored barrels (yawn) and your choice of a silver colored or gold colored top (zzz).   Not to mention that any time I find one that looks a bit interesting to me, the only reaction I ever seem to get is "Pshaw, lowly pencil collector!  Get thee to a junkyard with that common rubbish!"

OK, maybe it's not that bad.  But it does seem like the people that are into the Parker 51 are reeeeeally into the Parker 51, and it takes an awful lot for anything to get them really excited. 

But this one is one that even I could get excited about, and although I still wasn't moved enough to spend what it would have taken to acquire it, Gary Gardner was nice enough to let me take a few photographs of it at the Baltimore Show to share today.   This is the "Empire" cap . . .

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It's a Challenge to Find them Like This.

Here's something else that turned up at the Baltimore Show - too bad it was Joe Nemecek that found it before I did (boy, he was quick!). 

The one complaint I have about the Baltimore Show is the poor lighting, which had me laying on the floor in the aisle to take this shot against the carpet, which was the only background I could find that would bring out the color.  But anyway. . .

What makes this one unusual is the desk taper - a rare find in itself that will cost you a hundred dollars if the seller you are talking to knows what he's got.  But also unusual is what it's attached to . . .

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Harder Than It Had To Be

Sometimes it just seems like this pencil research is harder than it has to be, and the "Reporter" was one of those times I really felt like I was going the long way around the barn (is that an Ohio saying or what?).

Long before The Catalogue was a glint in my eye, back when I was first setting up my Online Mechanical Pencil Museum, I had posted a picture of the "Reporter" accompanied by a caption that wasn't much more than "I dunno."

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As Simple as A . . B. . Duplex?

This one came from an online auction, and I don't know what to make of it.  The clip is really interesting.  The "AB" logo strongly resembles the "SB" logo found on some Salz Brothers pencils, and the way it is set into the barrel is unique enough that I'm sure there's a patent for it . . .

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A twist on the Rite-Rite "Threadline"

I don't remember where I came across this one, which drives me a little bit nuts since it's only been in the last month or so.  It's the one at the bottom, shown next to a Rite-Rite "Threadline" pencil.  In my mind, I've got to group this with the "Threadline" family, although mechanically it is nothing of the sort.   It more closely resembles the Lipic unbranded pencils that are such a common sight (more on those later), but when I look at the tip, the clip, the profile and the color  . . .

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I Can't Remember the Name . . .

This example was in with that bunch of pencils I recently bought from my friend Michael McNeil at Northwest Pen Works.  It is a Ritepoint, a St. Louis company that made some really neat and really fun pencils.

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Now THAT'S What I'm Talking About!

Remember my tired little Faber Pony Clip?  Well, at the Scott Antique Market in February, I finally found one that was intact - in fact mint - shown here alongside a smaller version found at the Baltimore Show . . .

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An Everlasting Mystery

I'm always a sucker for a big honkin' 1920s flattop, and darn it - Paul Erano knows it.  At the Baltimore Show, he gave me one of those knowing smiles and slow nods as I passed by his table, because he knew he had this one sold to me before I even saw it.   This one is an "Ever Last," as marked on the distinctive clip (more on that in a minute) . . .

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The Eversharp Skyline Press Clip IV

At the Baltimore Show, I found this little guy on Terry Mawhorter's table.  I was pretty sure I had one of these, since the Eversharp Press Clip Skylines are a pretty common sight.  The reason I bought it was for the imprint, which I thought Janet would appreciate as an active member in her local Toastmasters' Club . . .

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. . .

The Early Slencils

Since The Catalogue was published, I've found a few other neat examples of the early metal Slencils shown on page 150.  Note that while two of these have a conventional nose-drive mechanism, the remainder have Harris' unique mid-barrel mechanism, for which he applied for his original patent in 1933.  However, this group of pencils showcase several of his other innovations, mostly involving the clips . . .

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The Pencil in the Iron Mask

Although this one wasn't the pencil I was looking at in that fuzzy ebay picture of a whole mess of pencils, when it arrived I had to give this one a closer look.  The pencil itself is pretty unremarkable -- just your typical, unmarked late 1940s or so pencil.  But that clip!

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I dream of GG

I'm sure there's a story behind this one, but I don't know what it is just yet.  Here's something kind of neat that I found at the Baltimore Show. It appears to be from around the first decade of the last century, judging from the style of the tip . . .

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.

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