Radical Surgery on a Skyline

In yesterday’s article, I commented that Skyline barrels, once damaged, were not designed to be repaired. However, there are time when it’s worth a shot. Take this one, for example, which I got for five bucks in a junk box at the Springfield Antique Show last summer – actually, I bought a bunch of things for five bucks, and this was just one of them:

The reason this was in a junk box was because the barrel is broken neatly in the center.

But what this particular dealer didn’t know, and I didn’t feel the need to enlighten him about, was that the absence of those ribs around the upper barrel could only mean one thing:

A plain upper barrel is a pretty sure indicator that the trim is 14k gold, and if I’d said something about that this pencil would surely have been melted down for scrap! What’s more, all of the trim on this pencil was just perfect, with no dents, so I thought if there was any way to salvage this one, it would be worth the effort. There’s no way to weld the halves of the barrel back together strong enough to last, but I did have another idea . . .

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.