The Optional Mr. Mooney

Conklin was a major player in the American writing instruments industry, leading many writers to say that the industry wasn’t dominated by the "Big Four" of Parker, Waterman, Sheaffer and Wahl Eversharp, but by the "Big Five." Before Sheaffer’s lever filler pen took the market by storm in the early teens, Conklin’s "Crescent Filler" pen was the most practical self-filling design.  That's what put and kept it in the "Big Five" fraternity – and not in the number 5 position, either!

But if we as historians were to assemble a list of Conklin’s top two innovations, the second one (right after the crescent filler) would have to be the "Mooney Clip," for which Frank H. Mooney applied for a patent on May 7, 1917, and which was issued as patent number 1,267,575 on May 28, 1918:

This distinctive clip makes it easy to spot a Conklin a mile away, and it was used, with a few cosmetic modifications, on nearly all of Conklin’s pens and pencils from its introduction until the company left Toledo at the end of the 1930s

Nearly all, that is. Except for those weird side clip examples from yesterday. And also, I learned at the Philadelphia Show, except for this one.  It turned up on Don Haupt's table:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Anywhere Else, It Would Take a Sharp Eye

I was pretty rusty when I restarted this blog after a two-month break. It was the same as if I’d taken a couple months off from working out at the gym every day – things just felt a little stiff, and before I really got back into my groove the words just weren’t coming as easily as they did.

So on one of my first nights getting back into the swing of things, I found myself staring at the blank computer screen while Janet watched reruns of Drop Dead Diva. And I actually caught myself watching Drop Dead Diva. OK, I thought to myself. When I’d rather do that than do this, it’s time to take an honest break. So I opened up my browser and headed over to the online auctions to see what was going on.

I searched for "pencils" and set the results to "ending soonest," and with six minutes to go, there was a hard-to-find Gordon with a telephone dialer. What luck! I threw in a bid and watched the counter click down to zero and . . .more on that one later. How’s that for a teaser?

Our story begins moments later, after that auction ended and I returned to my search results. Believe it or not, this was the very next auction listed, with only three minutes left:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Undibbable

When I saw this one pop up in an online auction, I got really excited. So excited, in fact, that I called dibs. Even so excited that I called dibs when, by right, I shouldn’t have, because Joe Nemecek actively collects Parker Vest Pocket pencils and I don’t.

What was so special about this one?

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

More than just "reddish brown"

Stephen Nagy is a character who, like me, lives around central Ohio. The only show he does that I know of is the Ohio Show, and he’s always got interesting stuff on his table. This year, he had this somewhat tired-looking box of goodies:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Here's Where This May Have Come From

Sometimes the way you find things teaches you as much as the things themselves. Today’s story involves this Sheaffer Fineline set, which I found in an antique mall over in Columbus, priced waaay to high for what it is:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Elppir Is Ripple Spelled Backwards

Rob Morrison dropped by my table at the Ohio Show with a few Watermans to show off:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Good Thing Both Of These Were In The Same Condition

Joe didn’t know how badly he needed one of these. He’s a tough guy to surprise.

Today's story begins at the Ohio Show, when Francis Bulbulian flags me down as I’m walking past his table and says he’s got something really special to show me. When he pulled this one out, he explained that while he didn’t know what it was, there was just something about it that looked . . . interesting. I had to agree:

The pencil isn’t marked sterling, and there’s a bit of corrosion on the barrel. It’s freakishly thin and long, with an interesting clip assembly:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Good Thing There Were Two Of These

Neither Joe Nemecek nor I know everything about pencils. In fact, even with our pencil knowledge combined, we don’t know everything. However, I will say that when neither Mike Little, Joe nor I have ever seen something . . .well, I guess that says something.

Mike brought two of these with him to Ohio, and both of them found their way into my pile during the swap-a-thon:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

An Eclipse With a Twist - Or a Push

The Ohio Show was extraordinary. In one show, to find a Parker Zaner Bloser, a red and pearl Sheaffer Balance, and an Eversharp Skyline demonstrator? Things like that just don’t happen to me.

But before all that happened, on Friday morning as Mike Little and I drove over to the Crowne Plaza hotel for preshow trading, I had this little guy in my pocket. At the time, before I’d found all the other neat stuff that turned up at the show, I was sure that nothing I was going to find would measure up to this:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

It Pays to Chat

If all I did at Pen Shows was look at pencils, I’d be bored out of my mind.

Sure, that’s the biggest part of the fun, but when you get to talking with people, that’s the part that’s really interested. And if I hadn’t struck up a conversation with Don and Ellen Haupt while I was looking at the stuff on their table Sunday at the Philly Show, I never would have gotten to see the single coolest thing I saw the entire weekend.

As I was picking out a few pencils at Don’s table, Ellen noticed the theme to what interested me and asked if I was interested in seeing a really interesting pencil. It wasn’t for sale, she’d cautioned me . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

The Clipectomy Was A Success

Matt McColm sent me a care package a few weeks ago that included this little gem:

It’s a WASP (short for W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co.) Pencil in the unusual "lahn" pattern, in which strips of tinfoil were inlaid into the celluloid. It’s a great pencil that I didn’t have, and the mechanism works great, but there’s one obvious problem with it:

Someone apparently forgot that you’re supposed to replace all divots! What’s happened here is that the clip, which was stapled into the barrel, was pulled away from the barrel, still clutching the rectangular shaped piece of celluloid in its prongs. Is the pencil a total loss? Well, knowing that I couldn’t really do any harm to it, I took up the challenge to fix this poor little guy back up again.

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Odds and Ends

Menash Signatures had a great Sheaffer repairman’s kit on his table at the Philadelphia show this year - a great, heavy oak box with a metal "Sheaffer’s" plaque mounted on the lid. Inside the box were all kinds of repair parts and tools for fixing early Sheaffer fountain pens. Although I’m no pen expert, it looked to date from the 1920s.

But laying in the upper tray were these odds and ends, which were significantly younger and didn’t have anything to do with pens:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Joe and I are on top of these

Joe Nemecek scooped me at the Ohio Show with this find:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Every Color But None

Back on October 24, I announced proudly that with the addition of a stocked display card of Eversharp Skyline Press Clip I pencils, I’d finally completed a set of all the colors and sizes.

I was wrong. I forgot about one.

I’d seen it in Raliegh last summer. Pat Mohan had brought it to show it to me, along with that great display of Sheaffer pencils that he’d put together over the years. I took photographs of his Sheaffers, but when he showed me his Eversharp, apparently I was unable to compose myself enough to take a picture – all I managed to do was to tell him if he ever decided he wanted to sell it, to let me know.

And at the Ohio Show, Pat did exactly that:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

This One Is To Dye For

As I was passing up one of the aisles at the Ohio Show near the end of the day on Saturday, Bill Bender flagged me down to look at a few pencils. I don’t remember what the others were, but this was clearly the standout:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

That Top

Rick Krantz and I really hadn’t met before the Philadelphia show this year, although we knew of each other from online. He’s a self-declared "poor man in a rich man’s hobby," and with Chilton as his favorite brand, it’s easy to see how anyone’s wallet could be drained quickly. By the end of the weekend, after sharing dinner with him, his wife and kids both nights and solving the world’s problems (and creating a few) over scotch and cigars, by the end of the weekend it was like we’d been friends for years.

But when this odd bird caught my eye on Rick’s table at the Philadelphia Show, it was the first time Rick and I had met in person:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

The Second Best Place For This One To Be

At the Ohio Show, Rob Bader did not disappoint. Early Sunday morning, he walked up to me with that familiar cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on his face. But this time, he wasn’t holding a pencil.

"There’s a rare pencil here today," he said, "and you don’t have it. The person selling it knows what it’s worth, but you should buy it."

Now that’s confidence, I’m thinking to myself. But since Rob hasn’t yet steered me wrong, all I said was "lead the way." And Rob did.

Tucked away in the back corner of the hallway, a few tables down from mine, was a vendor with a tragic story. Texas collector Stan Pfeiffer, who co-founded the Houston Pen Show and was one of the organizers of the L.A. Pen Show for a number of years, was killed in a fire at his home in Houston last summer, and the fire also damaged much of his pen collection. Stan’s longtime companion, Ginger Welch, brought some things from Stan’s collection to the Ohio Show to start liquidating them.

The things that she brought were really something to see – red hard rubber overlay pens and plenty of other fantastic fare like that. But a lot of what was there had some kind of damage, and all of it still smelled like a fire.

There wasn’t room enough in the display case on top of her table to accommodate everything she brought during the first couple of days, but as things sold, she would pull items from underneath the table and fill in the gaps. I hadn’t paid much attention to her display – not because it wasn’t spectacular, but because when I looked at her table earlier in the show it didn’t look like she had any pencils in the mix that interested me.

But Rob Bader was keeping a close eye on what was emerging from under her table to fill in the gaps, and he took notice when this one emerged early in the day on Sunday:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Leadhead's Tread: Philadelphia Pen Show

"You should go to Philly."

This was the year I decided I’d heard this just too many times, from just too many people, who all have said this in the same tone you’d use to lecture someone on the virtues of going to visit your mother. I finally made the pilgrimage this past weekend, and of course I found that all those people who lectured me that I should be there were right. . .

To learn more, the full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.