Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Holes Are OK This Time

You know, with all that talk about Dur-O-Lite lately, I really should have shown this one off.

I got this from Michael Little in Chicago, who has advised me that if I continue to be so obviously excited about the things I buy from him, he’s going to start raising his prices. Therefore, in the interests of self-preservation, I will state for the record that I’m not the least bit excited about this one. Geez, Mike, what are you trying to sell me here? This one has a hole cut in the top!

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




Saturday, September 29, 2012

Dur-O-Lite Repeaters Revisited

It occurred to me that while I was discussing the Dur-O-Matic the other day, I didn’t include a full-length shot of the later-style Dur-O-Lite Ejector pencils.  This one is imprinted with "Loyal Order of the Moose" . . .

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




Friday, September 28, 2012

Neither Dis One Or Dat One

If you ever get the chance to go to Newfoundland, take it. It’s not a glitzy place, and my trips there have been hunting trips – woodland caribou and moose. But it’s home to the best people on earth, with the best sense of humor to match.

There’s two major airports on the island. One is in St. John, the only metropolitan area in the province. The other is Gander, which more towards the center of the province. While at most airports you fumble around trying to find the right gate, you won’t have that problem in Gander, because there are only two – which the airport workers refer to, in their Newfoundland dialect, as "Dis One" and "Dat One."

Incidentally (I’m getting a little off topic with this, but it’s a great story that should be remembered), on September 11, 2001, Gander is the airport to which all of the large international planes that were in the air were diverted and grounded, because while it lacks a lot of amenities it has several large runways that could handle them. That tiny airport in that small town suddenly had dozens of planes on its runway and thousands of terrified and uncertain people with only two small hotels to house them.

So how did so many of us get through that darkest day in modern times? Through an amazing display of kindness and love in a place none of them ever expected to visit. Hundreds of Newfoundlanders from the surrounding area showed up in their cars at the airport that day. They each picked up as many complete strangers as they had room for, and they took them back to their own homes. They fed them, housed them and let them call their loved ones so they would know they were safe. Gradually, things calmed down and they brought them back to Gander airport, to see their new friends off, waving best wishes as they left from either dis gate or dat one.

That’s what Newfoundlanders are like, and I still get choked up when I tell that story. So if you ever feel the need to make fun of Canada – and Newfoundland in particular – don’t. Particularly in front of me. They are my friends and they should be yours too.

OK, end of sermon and back to the story at hand. The reason all this came to mind was as I was thinking about the Gold Bond pencils (Montgomery Ward’s store brand), I was thinking about the two types I’ve seen. There’s dis one, the kind made by National Pen Products under the Rex Patents . . .

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




Thursday, September 27, 2012

Drop The Quotations

Way back on February 14, I wrote an article on Eagle Drop pencils. A few weeks ago, I was rereading that article to see if I put the phrase "Drop pencil" in quotes – I’d always heard them called that, and the name fits perfectly for what they do, but the only words on the examples I’d found were "Eagle Pencil Co." and the patent dates.

I try to be careful when I don’t have any evidence that a title for a pencil is the formal name given to it by its manufacturer, because otherwise it’s simply a descriptive collector’s nickname that we use today as a matter of convenience. I probably should apologize that I didn’t say "drop pencil" is a nickname.

But I can’t.

A while back, a seller in an online auction who didn’t appear to know beans about pencils included in his description of a fuzzy picture showing several pencils that one was an Eagle Drop pencil. Here it is . . .

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




Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Dur-O-What?

When I first started practicing law twenty years ago, one of the old lawyers in the firm I was working for told me something I’ve never forgotten. "The whole trick to this," he said, "is to be able to read the words that are actually there. Not what you assume is there, and not what you think is there – only what is actually there."

Those words have served me well in life, not just in the practice of law but in a variety of situations, including the one that leads to today’s story. Were it not for that bit of wisdom, I would have seen an online auction listing for a "Dur-O-Matic" pencil and breezed right past it, assuming that the seller meant "Dur-O-Lite."

But I could hear the old lawyer’s voice in my head say, "Dur-O-What?" So I zoomed in closer for a second look, and by golly, that’s exactly what it said . . .

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




Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Rite-On!

"Ever seen a ‘Rite-O’?" Michael Little emailed me a while back. I hadn’t yet, but I’d seen something close.

I’d found this stocked display of lead and eraser refills in an online auction some time ago, and even though I didn’t know there were any pencils to go with it, I just thought it was too neat to pass up. The display indicates it was made by the "Tri-Ess Corporation" of Jersey City, New Jersey . . .

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




Monday, September 24, 2012

The Ruxton Multi-Vider

I’ve been wanting to write about the Ruxton for a long, long time. There are only two reasons I haven’t: (1) I didn’t think I was qualified to say anything intelligent, and (2) I haven’t had one cross my path. On the first count, I’m not sure I’m any further along than I was before; however, one finally did cross my path. 
 
This one was in that last mess of stuff that came from the estate of Edgar Nichols (inventor of the Tripoint, among other things). Figures, right? Of course Edgar Nichols had one of these.
Ruxtons are marked on the side opposite the clip with the "Ruxton Multivider" imprint . . .

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




Sunday, September 23, 2012

Not Quite A Waterman

Here’s an interesting piece. I don’t remember where it came from.  The nose has the same style tip seen on many Waterman models of the 1930s, including the Patrician, Lady Patricia, Thorobred, Ink vue . . . the list goes on and on . . .

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




Saturday, September 22, 2012

Odd Ducks

The Riedell, as the title of today’s article suggests, is an odd duck. It appears on page 126 of The Catalogue, and in addition to the fact that I’ve never had one in working condition, I can’t figure out how they ever did.

The internal workings look like they were designed by Dr. Seuss – here’s the picture from page 126 showing the tip removed . . .

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




Friday, September 21, 2012

Two Out Of 62 Ain't Bad

That lot of 62 "mostly advertising" pencils had one other great piece in it, shown here next to the one I had in the blue "clown" plastic typically found on Sheaffer Balance pencils.

It’s another Rite Rite "torpedo" pencil (that’s my description, not an official name), patented by Herbert H. Lang on August 22, 1933 (patent number 1,923,153), although he filed his patent application two years earlier, on August 27, 1931 . . .

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




Thursday, September 20, 2012

Horses of Different but Familiar Colors

The title of the online auction was "Lot of 62 vintage mechanical pencils most have advertising" and there were three pictures: one showing the whole mess of 62, then one showing the top half of the heap and a third showing the bottom half of the heap. Sixty of them looked like the usual forties and fifties advertising pencils.

But then there were those last two . . .

When the package arrived, I hardly noticed there were sixty other pencils in those bags as I pawed through them like they were just more of the packaging. Eventually, I found the two that looked special, and yep, they sure were! Here’s the first one . . .

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




Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Man Scorned

A few weeks ago, I was discussing the "Real Housewives of Minneapolis," and the determination with which Frank J. Vierling patented improvements to his wife Mary’s pencil design, the Dow. The last one of his patents along these lines, which he applied for on August 6, 1927, was the only one that identified an assignee: "Snap Point Pencil, Inc."

The existence of an assignee suggested that the pencil went into production at some point, although I’d never seen one. That changed in DC . . .

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




Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Swanky It Is!

Here’s one I’ve been meaning to write about for awhile, and one came my way through Frank Hoban and Michael Little in DC.

Now if you’re rolling your eyes, bear with me. Yeah, these tie-clip pencils epitomize the lounge lizards of the 1970s. I was given one as a birthday present when I was a kid, and even though I thought it was kind of neat, I could never bring myself to wear it in public, even with the clip-on ties I had to wear to church on Sundays.

But I wouldn’t bring these up if there weren’t a good story here.

This example is a little different in that it has a ruler on the side, and the measurements are also imprinted on the telescoping part . . .

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




Monday, September 17, 2012

WIth A Little Help From My Friends

A while ago (June 22) I told the story of my fruitless efforts to restore a black and pearl Craig pencil, which was missing the entire top assembly. Just a couple days later, I received a priority mail box from Dan Reppert – odd, since I hadn’t bought anything from Dan recently. Odder still was that there didn’t appear to be anything in the package other than wadded-up newspaper, but since I was convinced there must have been some reason Dan sent me a box, I sifted through all the paper and found a perfectly preserved top for a Craig.

But alas, there wasn’t any way to attach the top to what was left of my poor black and pearl. Turns out that in addition to the top piece, there was a bushing that was pressed into the barrel at one time which was also missing, and without which there wasn’t anything to hold the top onto the barrel. A few weeks and several expletives later, I found myself at the DC show looking for yet another part to finish the pencil that I was now determined was going to get finished somehow.

Which brings me to Tim Pierson, one of the really interesting guys who frequents all the same pen shows I do. Tim, perennially dressed in a Hawaiian shirt regardless of the season, arguably has more pens and pencils in his display than any other dealer. In fact, I usually tell Tim during the show that I’ll come back to see him at the end of the show, since he’s about the last one to leave and there’s just so much stuff to go through.

Good stuff, too. And since Janet and I had decided to stay the night Sunday in DC, for the first time I actually had as much time as I wanted to go through every single tray and drawer he had. I wasn’t looking for a beater Craig particularly, but this time as luck would have it, he had one that was pretty dented up and bleak looking – and an exact duplicate for the short one I wrote about in that last article. And the bushing at the top end of the barrel was intact and in great condition!

The price was right, since I was picking up a few other things from Tim as well, and so my first order of business when I got back from DC – after taking a deep breath and figuring out what to photograph first – was to attack that Craig. The bushing, as I mentioned, was press fit into the barrel, which usually involves destroying the barrel in order to remove it, but I just didn’t want to do that except as a last resort. So I took a paper clip – my most trusty tool in my tool kit – and with a pair of pliers wrapped it tightly around the bushing in the small gap between the bushing and the top end of the barrel. After 20 minutes of wiggling with a pair of pliers (the longest I’ve been able to sit and watch Project Runway with Janet, I’ll add), at last it came free.

I was assuming, since the bushing had somehow come out of mine, that I was going to have to glue this one into my black and pearl. But no, it was a very tight fit, and it was going to be every bit as difficult getting the bushing into this one as it was to get out of the other one. How in the name Craig Sheaffer, I was thinking to myself, did this #@%( thing get out of there in the first place???

Which brings me to a part of the story that you might find useful – a part I knew only because of what I did before I started collecting pencils. Back in the early 1990s, "two wives ago," as I like to say, I used to turn pens on a lathe and assemble them from pen kits you can get from woodworker’s supply houses. I’d gotten pretty good at it and bought most of the tools you need for the job, most of which were in a dusty box in the garage I haven’t opened since I moved a few years ago. One is a tool which is an absolute must in exactly these situations – the pen press . . .

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




Sunday, September 16, 2012

One Classy Find

The one thing about us rabid leadheads is that each of us knows and understands the feeling of seeing something in an online auction and actually having a feeling of panic that someone else might win the auction. Once in a great while, we will send a very short message out to our brethren who we know are probably also watching:

Dibs.

A while back, Joe Nemecek sent out such a plea for a particular piece that came up for sale. I did have it saved in my watch list, but hey . . . Joe called it, so I let it go and Joe did end up winning. There was, however, a small price for Joe to pay for me to sit on my hands: he had to bring it with him to DC so I could photograph it . . .

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




Saturday, September 15, 2012

Sort Of Against My Will

I really don’t want to get into collecting English pencils. I’m serious. This isn’t like my feeble protests of not being a "wood pencil guy" but continuing to buy them every so often – I really have made an effort not to buy pencils that aren’t American.

It’s not that I have anything against foreign pencils, because many are every bit as good or better than anything the American manufacturers produced, it’s just that I know myself too well. I buy one, and the next one I see that would look good next to it comes my way, and the next thing I know, I’m building shelves on another wall in the pencil room. I’m running out of walls.

So about the only exception I have made to my all-American stand has been English Eversharps, which fit in so nicely with my Eversharp collection that it just doesn’t seem right to exclude them.

This story, unfortunately, doesn’t involve an English Eversharp.

Late on the last day of the DC show, after I’d blown most of the cash I wanted to spend, Alan Hirsch comes up to me with a little box and wants to know what I think . . .

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




Friday, September 14, 2012

The Secretary Pen Company

The Secretary Pen Company of Newark, New Jersey was left out of The Catalogue. I don’t know why, really, because I had a few examples, but for whatever reason, I forgot to include it. The company has an interesting pedigree: Joseph V. Wustman founded the Camel Pen Company in 1935, but Camel quickly succumbed during the depression, closing its doors in 1938.

Ever the optimist, Wustman acquired the equipment and tooling from Camel and started a new business called the Newark Pen Company. Newark Pen made some nice pens called the "Secretary," but within a few years the company apparently renamed itself "Secretary Pen Company" and started to turn out advertising pieces that were, well, kitchy.

That bunch I picked up at Springfield included several of the typical examples made by the Secretary Pen Co. . .

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




Thursday, September 13, 2012

A Grand Day Out

I’ve talked a bit before about the Springfield Antique Show in western Ohio, just off Interstate 70. Janet and I don’t get over there quite as regularly as we do the Don Scott Show in Columbus, since it’s almost an hour further distant, but we did make the August show this year.

There are times in Ohio, in the dead of winter, when all is grey and wet, that it helps to think about the times in my fair state when the weather is nice and you can actually do things outdoors. Pictures of those nicer days are always a tremendous help during those short, dark days that make up nearly half of our year. And this picture, taken at the Springfield show, is one of those that I’ll use to remind me in February why I still live here . . .

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




Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Quarter Inch That Makes All The Difference

"Executive" – few things have a nicer ring as far as the online hucksters are concerned. You can put this adjective in front of nearly anything, and poof! You can dress up even the crappiest Bic ballpoint. In fact, it ranks high among the other overused adjectives in online auctions, such as:

4. Early (or at least, earlier than yesterday’s breakfast)
3. Rare (sometimes I seriously believe the seller means undercooked)
2. Stunning (but they never say whether you should be stunned in a good way or a bad way)
1. Solid, as in gold (used as if even the lead installed in it is 14k – nothing like seeing a gold plated piece on a scale to make you want to take a shower).

But I’m getting off topic. In today’s episode, "Executive" has a very specific meaning when it comes to the Eversharp Skyline. Here’s the picture from page 72, frame 29 of The Catalogue . . .

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




Tuesday, September 11, 2012

A Close Call

Sometimes, I’ll win an online auction for a price that I consider to be just pennies on the dollar compared to what it’s worth. Usually, I’ll resist the urge to contact the seller and tell them how delighted I am to have won, and to be super duper careful packing it, and to insure the package – after all, I don’t necessarily want the seller to think he should have gotten much more.

From past experience, when a seller thinks he’s been shortchanged, that tends to trigger all manner of online shenanigans, from "oh I can’t find the item now, I must have lost it" to "accidentally" sending me the wrong item, to claiming the item was lost in the mail.

So usually, as was the case in this story, I just sit as patiently as I can and bite my nails waiting for the item to arrive safely. I had won something in an auction from a Florida seller who didn’t know beans about pencils; he or she did a great job describing the item but a pretty bad job taking pictures of it. If it was what I thought it was, it would be a truly significant find, and if it was in decent condition it would really be something special. But, when the auction closed, I didn’t end up having to pay very much for it.

After standing next to the mailbox for a few days, I received my package from Florida. I carefully opened the envelope and pulled out what was inside . . .

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




Monday, September 10, 2012

A Perfect End To The Story

Here’s a beautiful little pencil that turned up at the Springfield Antique Show.

This is a "Perfect Point" (and yes, the name is in quotations) . . .

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




Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Oversized Pint-size

Here’s another one of the neat finds Joe Nemecek shared with me during our photo shoot in DC.

The top example is a typical Sheaffer golf pencil – typical, although black is a surprisingly difficult color to find in these. But the lower one is the interesting one: for the executive on the golf course, Sheaffer actually made an oversized golf pencil, complete with a 14k gold wide band on which a facsimile of the owner’s signature was reproduced.

The guy probably carried clubs that were a foot longer than everyone else’s, huh?

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




Saturday, September 8, 2012

Lost and Not Yet Found

One of my greatest pleasures in collecting is finding pencils with names I’ve not yet heard of. Unfortunately, for so many of these the story behind them remains lost to history, so right now, I can’t do anything more than say "here they are."

So I’ll just document these and put them out there, in the hopes that for someone out there in cyberland these will ring a bell and with any luck, prompt an email that will bring a box, paperwork or some other additional information to light (or at least a few humorous cracks from the usual smart-alecks).

First is one marked "Master," which surfaced in an online auction . . .

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




Friday, September 7, 2012

These Guys Really Did This Right!

Occasionally at a pen show, Rob Bader will make a beeline for me with his hands behind his back and a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on his face, and I know he’s really found something special. Rob’s got a great eye for a good pencil – I can’t ever remember a time that I wasn’t as excited by what he’d found has he was.

Usually, he’s content to have me drool all over whatever he’s found and then tell me it isn’t for sale, which is one reason why I started bringing my camera to pen shows. But this time I was salivating pretty heavily and he didn’t bring a big enough towel to wipe it off, so with a bit of cash (ok, more than just a bit) he let me bring it home . . .

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




Thursday, September 6, 2012

Diamonds, But Not In The Rough

Collectors of Diamond Points draw a bright line between the high quality pieces the company made during their early days in the 1920s and the more conventional, but cheaper pens and pencils the company turned out from the late 1930s forward. But say what you will about their later stuff, the colors and patterns they used were just spectacular and nearly all were unique to this brand.

In a weak moment, I saw two in separate online auctions a few weeks ago, and even though I thought the opening bids were a little high on both of them I simply couldn’t resist them . . .

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




Wednesday, September 5, 2012

An Even Greater Public Service

When I first established my website and started posting pages at my "Mechanical Pencil Museum," one of my earliest pages concerned the "Pato," which also appears at page 118 of The Catalogue.

I have characterized this as a public service announcement, for all those online sellers out there who have advertised "Pato" pens or pencils. The mistake happens frequently enough that I felt compelled to put something out there in cyberland – so that it would be found using the search engines – to let sellers know that it’s not "Pato" . . .

It’s Patd. As in "patented."

Over the years, I occasionally get emails from random sellers, to thank me for this bit of information and preventing them from making the same mistake so many others have made. I’d have to say, out of all the pages I’ve posted, I’ve made more friends out of this one than any other.

And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, I’m going to tell you the rest of the story.

See, these Patd clips appear on literally hundreds of lower tier pencils (and pens, for that matter). As an example, here’s a couple more well known brands . . .

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




Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Keeping It Real

Here was a nice find from the DC show. I don’t remember where it came from, but I think it came out of Frank Hoban’s hoard (through Michael Little).

This is a "Realpoint," which was an Autopoint brand (the name is a combination of Realite and Autopoint, the two companies which merged to form the Autopoint Products Company). According to Jim Stauffer, Realpoint was the brand Autopoint used to test market new ideas, which explains why this one lacks the familiar removable nose cone seen on Realites and Autopoints.  The mechanism is a conventional nose drive.

Also, rather than being made of bakelite, another Autopoint standby, Realpoints are made in very attractive colors. Here it is, posed with the three examples pictured on page 23 of The Catalogue . . .

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




Monday, September 3, 2012

My Inner Hillbilly

Labor Day weekend is, for me, more than just a long weekend and a sign that the summer is winding down. It’s my chance, once a year, to live up to every stereotype big-city types have of rural Ohio and embrace my inner hillbilly – at Swapper’s Day in Johnstown, Ohio. And I do it with gusto.

Swapper’s Day is a flea market/gun swap/dog show and sale held at the Sportsman’s Club grounds just outside of Johnstown, and I’ve been going there for probably close to twenty years now. Usually there’s dozens of yard sales all along the state routes leading to the Sportsman’s Club, but with limited time (and when Janet goes, on limited patience) I usually forego those and head straight for the main event.

This year, since it was raining, we took the F-150, as four-wheel drive is a must in the muddy marsh that is the parking field.  Here’s what the event looks like as you are coming in the gates . . .

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




Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Metal Cap Fad Begins

Putting together a top ten list of most influential pen and pencil designs in history is an easy task, because there have been a few truly standout instances where one writing instrument manufacturer puts a new idea out there and within a few short years everyone is copying it trying to catch up. The Sheaffer Balance is an excellent example, for making tapered designs fashionable. LeBouf’s pioneering use of celluloid had everyone racing to come out with pens that weren’t made of hard rubber.

And the Parker 51 is widely regarded as the writing instrument that overnight had everyone else trying to copy the solid color lower barrel, metal upper barrel look. But here’s a little secret: the Parker 51 followed in the footsteps of something else. Here’s the Parker "Duo-tone."

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




Saturday, September 1, 2012

I'm Glad the Name Didn't . . . Stick

Andy Beliveau is one of those that’s great to have a drink with. He’s had an interesting life; he’s seen it all, heard it all, done it all, and best of all, he’s made meticulous mental notes about it all and can spin a great story. And spin stories he did, over some great Thai food at the place around the corner on Friday night!

Saturday morning, I noticed Andy had this one on his table. It was part of a set, but he was all right with peeling off the pencil for me . . .

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