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.