Parker Writefine: A "Variant"

Over the winter, a fellow stumbled upon my Mechanical Pencil Museum online and sent me an email.  He claimed to have, among other things, a Parker Writefine which, instead of an exposed eraser, had an eraser under a cap.  The pictures he sent me weren't very clear, but we were finally able to agree on the price.

This example is identical to other ones I had in my collection, so the only reason I bought this one was for the different top treatment . . .

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Parker Writefine: Later Examples

The second generation of Parker Writefines came in a nice variety of colors.

The trim rings found on earlier examples have been abandoned, and the top section on these is fixed, so there's no more unscrewing them and losing the clip.  Unfortunately, the top example in this picture is missing the knurled plastic piece, which is a shame (on ebay, it had a large rubber eraser over the top which hid this problem). 

Barrel imprints appear either at the top opposite the clip, or as two in this picture show, just above the lower barrel section.    Notice also the one second from bottom has a longer lower barrel and shorter upper barrel . . .

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Parker Writefine: "Striped Duofold" Writefines

When Sheaffer introduced its "working togs" utility pencils in the late 1930s, they quickly became a very successful seller for the company.  The robust design and exposed eraser made them a perfect no-fuss writing instrument, and the company sold millions of them over the course of decades.  Sheaffer also came up with a thinner lead for use in these pencils, called "Fineline" lead, and eventually created the "Fineline Division" dedicated to producing lower-cost writing instruments, including the "pearlie" pencils, up into the 1970s.

Sheaffer's success did not go unnoticed by Parker, so Parker decided to try to get into the game.  Parker's response was the "Writefine," and the earliest examples strongly resemble the "wartime" or "striped" duofolds of the early 1940s . . .

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Getting a Better Grip on Ronsons

Bruce Mindrup said that I had to have this every time I picked it up at his table in Chicago, and I must have picked it up a dozen times.  I knew he was right, and it was pointless to resist. 

This is a first generation Ronson Penciliter (see my post on March 13).  The only reason I tried to resist at first was that I had some reservations about that grip at the nose end, which is  shaped almost like a fountain pen section . . .

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Also Seen at Chicago

Lee Anderson stopped by my table to ask me what I thought about this one. 

What I thought was "wow."   Lee's first concern was whether this truly was a Parker vest pocket pencil (see pages 112 to 113 in The Catalogue), because it didn't appear to have a barrel imprint.  On closer inspection, if you know where the imprint should be, you can just make it out traces of it as you rotate the pencil in strong light.   I don't know whether the imprint was badly worn or whether it wasn't struck that well to begin with, since the trim on the pencil is in really nice shape.

I've never seen this brown marbled color in a Parker Vest Pocket pencil before. . .

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Seen at Chicago

When I passed by Cliff Harrington's table in Chicago, I noticed this one. 

From what I could see, this one didn't appear to be marked at all, and if it weren't "brazilian green" (green and bronze), I've got to admit I might not have considered that it could be an Eversharp.   But according to Cliff it is, and I certainly believe him, because he had the whole set . . .

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Nothing New Under the Sun

Today I'm taking a break from talking about the things I found in Chicago, because the neat story behind this one keeps nagging at me, saying "Ooooh!  Pick me! Write about me!" and I just need to get it over with!

This Eagle "Turquoise Twenty" arrived in my mailbox some time ago from ebay . . .

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Better than Terrible

Mention the name "Stratford" to a collector of fine writing instruments if you want to see someone look like they just took a big swig of month-old milk.   True, there are some really, really bad Stratfords out there, in plastics that are mousy and prone to shrinking and warping.  And they were made by the millions, so you can hardly swing a dead cat at a flea market without hitting one.

But bear with me now, and try to keep an open mind about this . . .

"Stratford Pen Company" was the later incarnation of Salz Brothers, Inc.  One source I read somewhere said that the company was set up separately by Ignatz Salz, and eventually purchased Salz Brothers.  Ignatz died in 1958, and the company may have continued on for a few years after that.  The earliest Stratfords I've seen, until the Chicago show, appear to have been from the late 1930s and loosely copied the lines of the Eversharp Doric (complete with a little gold seal that instead of a double check mark had the number "77") .

Until the Chicago Show . . .

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Faster than a Speeding Bullet

My other walk-in find at the Chicago show came from Keith Lange, who stopped by just as the show was starting to wind down for the weekend.  Keith had with him a box of odds and ends, and when I found a Penman in there, I think I bored the poor guy to death with the tale of Penman, Starr, war profiteering and the tax evasion scandal that brought down Joseph Starr (see pages 151 and 152 in The Catalogue).

As I dug a little deeper into the box, this pops out . . .

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If You're Going to Look at All, Look Reeel Close

On Sunday, a fellow named Gary Steinberg brought a pencil by my table to ask what I knew about it.  Now most people breeze right past these, because at first glance it looks like a typical Wahl Eversharp sterling pencil, with the "full jacket" engraving on it.  Although they are simply beautiful, Wahl made so many of them that they remain a relatively common sight -- although the price of silver certainly hasn't made them less appealing lately.

I've learned never to judge a book by its cover when it comes to these, and in this case it paid off handsomely.  A close look at the imprint reveals something neat . . .

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There's GOTTA be a Connection

All but the last 17 miles of my drive to the Chicago Pen Show were a breeze.  I'd done a bit of work at the office before taking off shortly before noon, then stopped to have a leisurely lunch with Janet on the way through Columbus.  It was sunny and 80 degrees, and I hummed along with a Gotye CD as I cruised across western Ohio and through Indiana.   

But things got ominous as I neared the end of I-65.  I was driving the wife's car because it has GPS, and the nice lady was telling me in a soothing voice to turn right when I didn't think it was a very good idea. 

Turns out I was right . . . I was exiting onto 15th Avenue in Gary, Indiana, and as I was leaving the highway -- with no way to reenter -- I saw the exit for I-90 just a couple hundred yards away.  It might as well have been a million miles away.

I had quite the one-sided discussion with the GPS lady as she calmly recalculated my route, sending me down a Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway that didn't look like it had been mowed yet this year, and through a war zone of a neighborhood where mine was the newest car by a decade and three out of four houses had plywood for windows.  I finally decided to quit yelling and listen to her, since she was the only chance I had of getting out of Gary, Indiana alive.   I have never been so happy to see an Interstate sign in my life. 

Turns out my little detour did bypass the tollbooth to get onto I-90 and saved me 60 cents, but I can tell you with confidence:  they could charge 60 dollars to avoid that little jaunt and I'd still pay it!

Anyway, just as I was beginning to relax again, I hit two obstacles:  Chicago traffic and a gullywasher of a rainstorm.  I was becoming irritated with GPS lady again, as she calmly told me to "proceed on the current road" when I was at a dead stop in the pouring rain.  But hey, I thought to myself, things could be worse:  I could be in Gary, Indiana!

I arrived at the Westin O'hare and was in my room at around 8 o'clock.  Trading for the day was over, but Judd Perlson's pizza party was just getting started, so the day was by no means a total loss!  After a bit of socializing and unwinding, Michael Little and I decided we should go through each other's stuff and do our swapping that evening.

He pulled a bunch of stuff out of my boxes, and I pulled a bunch from his. We compared piles and decided that we were both happy.  Among the things I got from him were these . . .

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Zaner- Au Naturale

I think it was Mike Carter that had this one on his table in Chicago.  No question from the profile that it is a Zaner Bloser, made in Columbus, Ohio.  Although I've posted pictures before of wood examples, all the ones I've had are painted, rather than stained and varnished like this one.  Judging from the good condition of the trim, I was sure this was originally finished like this rather than by a do-it-yourselfer who wanted to clean up a chipped pencil . . .

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These Slither

There's a lot of plastics that have been nicknamed "snakeskin" or "lizard skin" by collectors.  But Eberhard Faber takes the cake with these . . .

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Hip to Be Square

A few weekends ago Janet and I headed over to Springfield for their monthly antique show.  We were particularly eager to go this time, since the weather in Ohio has been unusually nice this spring and this is the first indoor/outdoor show.  But, as we say around here, if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes. . . in this case, we went the opposite direction, and after a few sunny days in the 70s, the day of the show was 45 frickin' degrees and raining.  Those outdoor dealers that hadn't already packed up and headed home by 10 in the morning were soggy and in a foul mood, standing next to displays that were either covered with tarps or simply left out to soak up the charm of springtime in Ohio.

So, the enormous crowd ended up cramming into the couple small buildings, inside which the pickings were dry and the dealers were in a much better mood. 

I don't know what it is about the Springfield show . . . I always find great stuff, but it's usually not pencils.  In fact, it's usually stuff that's almost pencils, and this time was no exception.  In a dollar box I turned this up . . .

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The Yang to My Ying

During the Friday trading at the Chicago show, I decided to wander around a bit while Michael Little was going through Frank Hoban's boxes behind the scenes, and I naturally tended to gravitate around to the front of Frank's table.  There I found a little box with a few pencils in it, and the more I looked, the more excited I got.  By the time I was finished, I'd taken about two thirds of the box.

What struck me the most was the Eversharp "Square 4" pencils that were in there.  I've got quite a few of them, as pictured on page 71 of The Catalogue, but from what I could tell, all the ones Frank had were ones I didn't have -- and all of them were in great condition.   So I had to bring the ying and yang together!

First, there was one in the same red "bumblebee" pattern as the dollar pencil I recently wrote about . . .
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Will the Gentleman from Bulgaria Please Stand . . .

A few weeks ago, I saw an Eagle Stop Gauge pencil at an online auction that I just had to have.  In the plus column was everything about the pencil; in the minus column was that the seller and the item were located in Bulgaria.  I shared my excitement with my pencil buddies in Chicago as I awaited the package; most were of the opinion that Bulgarian listings were unreliable, and I'd probably just been ripped off.

I didn't care.  I'd paypaled my payment and I was standing by the mailbox with my tongue hanging out, hoping against hope that my Bulgarian contact was legit.  He was!

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The Pen that Finally Fits In

Last September, Janet and I made one of our once-in-a-while trips to the Springfield, Ohio Antique Show -- I think this one was one of the "extravaganza" weekends, with more indoor and outdoor dealers than you can possibly see in a day.  Well, I suppose you could just jog past all the vendors, but what's the fun in that?

We contented ourselves to just enjoy what we could for the day and move at a relaxed pace.  One of the people that I did get to see was my friend Judy, a dealer who is just a treat to talk to, with a great sense of humor and a keen memory for who likes what.  She knows I like pens and pencils, so for years she has kept an eye out for me.   Since she makes the effort, I always try to buy from her unless it's something I can't justify buying.

Well, this time Judy had a box of stuff for me to look at.  Usually, the way this goes is she shows me things and asks me how much she should charge.  I tell her, and then she asks if I want them for that.  That puts me in a bit of a pickle, because I want to be fair to her, I want to buy from her, I know she's relying on me, but I know that I'm pretty much naming my price when she asks me.

This time was no different.  The box that she had was mostly pens, a few broken Sheaffers, some newer pens, and a couple pencils -- nothing that would go in my collection.  She asked me what I thought, and I was truthful with her and told her it didn't look like there was anything there for my collection, so all I'd be willing to pay was "X" (numbers omitted to protect the innocent).   As usual, there was no haggling and the deal was done.  I tucked the box under my arm and we moved on.

As I was sorting through them later, though, I found out this one was in there . . .

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I'm Pretty Sure I Know What This Is . . .

When this turned up in a box of stuff on Frank Hoban's table, I just had to have it.  At the top are two rotating discs.  The black sleeve over the barrel is spring loaded and slides down the barrel . . .

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They Really Were . . . All Right, That Is

These turn up every once in a while, but they are pretty easy to overlook since they are a little bit newer than most collectors prefer.  Almost always when you see these, they are in black and are advertising pieces.  The light blue one was a bit unusual to find.  The most striking feature about these to me is the clip, which is kind of like an Eversharp Fifth Avenue clip, but without the center part . . .

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A. T. Cross: Just a Couple More . . .

The title seems kind of fitting . . . I'd relegated Cross to the "Just a Couple More" section in The Catalogue, and here in this last post on the brand (for now) I've got just a couple more odds and ends to show.

The first two are from my collection.  The "Alwrite" brand name was first used by Cross in 1918, and both of these are so marked . . .

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Bummer of a Birthmark

I've admitted that I'm addicted to collecting Sheaffers, but I'm not a hoarder.  If I've got one, I don't need another. 

So why, you may ask, would I pull cash out of my pocket fast as a jackrabbit when I saw this one on Alan Kaufman's table, without even bothering to check to see if I had one like it?

Yes, this is the big boy among rigid radius clip Sheaffers, measuring in at a hefty 5 1/2 inches, but that's not it. 

There's been discussion among Sheaffer collectors lately about what has been nicknamed the "Cathedral weave" effect that can be seen on some striated Sheaffer pens.  Some striated Sheaffers were made with square rods of celluloid that were glued together in a grid, so that when the block was shaped into the streamlined profile of a pen cap or barrel, the rounding off results in black arches that resemble the graceful arches in a Cathedral.

When it occurs, it is more pronounced on the pens, which have sharper curves at the ends, than it is on the pencils -- and that's when the rods are straight.  What happens when the rods are not straight for some reason before they are milled into a pencil cap? Say, for example, when they are as crooked as this . . .

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This Was Bound to Happen

Lately, I've been having a lot of fun exploring pencils made by the Nichols Products Corporation, and all of the neat patents that were issued to Edgar Nichols.  I've written articles about the Nichols Tri-Point, as well as what I've called (tongue firmly in cheek) the Nichols "Monopoint," fitted with Nichols' patented magnifier.

After a brisk day two of the Chicago Pen Show, Michael Little was basking in the afterglow of his purchasing.  He can say all day long that he just buys stuff to sell in his ebay store, but I know better -- mostly because I had a lot of difficulty persuading him to sell me this one . . .

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I'll Never Surprise Jack

Last Friday at the Chicago Pen Show, things were really moving behind the tables along "pencil alley."  Michael "Ferengi" Little came to socialize and to buy inventory for his ebay selling, and sitting next to him was Frank "The Pusher" Hoban, who came with boxes and boxes of pencils, mostly advertising items.  It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. 

While Mike pawed through Frank's offerings like a lion feasting on a wildebeast, I thought it best to stay clear for fear of being skewered with a pencil -- but I did get to look through the tubs after Mike had taken what he was interested in.

Here's one of the leftovers . . .

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Now I Can Really Call Them "Gold Seal" Pencils

Lately I've written a few articles about "transitional" Eversharps, which have the flattop styling of the early crown-top and Tempoint lines but internally have the same mechanism used on the later Equipoised and Doric product lines.  As of last Thursday, I had found two distinct families . . .

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Leadhead's Tread: 2012 Chicago Pen Show Report

I've always had a soft spot for the Chicago Pen Show.  It was the second pen show I attended more than ten years ago (second after the Ohio Show in my own back yard, of course).   It's been at the Westin O'Hare every year I've gone, and this year was no exception. 

Since I've been pretty busy at work lately, I decided to keep things simple and just take along some copies of my book, as well as a few pens and pencils for swappin'.   Rather than fill up a whole table, Michael "Ferengi" Little and I decided to split one (as he says, so I can watch his stuff while he runs around and buys everything in the room).

Last year, I just flew out and took the hotel shuttle from the airport, and they really had things down to a science (or so it seems, to an Ohio boy landing in the big city).  I drove this year (a box of books ways waaaaay more than 50 pounds), which isn't too bad if you can adjust to the idea that a hotel is going to charge you $7 a day to park in the parking lot on site. 

The hotel itself is really impressive, with a central hallway that runs the entire length of the hotel. . .

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A. T. Cross: Racing Stripes

Maybe I'm trivializing them by calling them "racing stripes," but to me the nickname for the black enamel rings painted on some Cross pencils seems apt.  Cross has always taken great pride in being a thoroughbred of writing instruments meanufaturers, so nothing like a snazzy paint job to bring out the Ferrari in them.

Here's a group of them from Jim Rouse's collection . . .

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A. T. Cross: Enameled Ringtops

Jim Rouse also had a group of nice hand-painted enameled ringtops, probably intended as ladies' pencils.  I knew that Sheaffer and Waterman offered similarly hand-painted ringtops, but these were the first that I'd seen by Cross.  The three on the right are all marked with the "Alwrite" trademark.  From what I recall, the one on the left is marked AXT . . .

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A. T. Cross: The only one I can one-up Jim with

Here's another one of the spectacular examples in Jim Rouse's collection.  The machine work on the barrel is very finely done.  This one has the "AXT" marking at the top of the barrel . . .

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A. T. Cross: Stockbroker's pencil

The crown jewel of Jim Rouse's Cross collection is this stockbroker's pencils, complete with original box and spare leads.  The design is the same one used on the small gold filled and enameled pencils shown in yesterday's post.  Although it's not marked 14k, this pencil has a commanding presence:

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A.T. Cross: Other Victorian Pencils

In addition to the large selection of magic pencils in Jim Rouse's collection, he also had a fair number of other Victorian pieces . . .

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A.T. Cross: Victorian magic pencils

Since I knew that the Cross section in The Catalogue was inadequate, I had already started looking for more examples of the brand before I encountered Jim Rouse.   When it came to Victorian "magic" pencils (the type that the tip extends from the front when the rear is pulled outward), I had managed to find two . . .

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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