These Shur Were The Best They Made

We pencil guys – particularly we pencil guys who have to take everything apart to see how these things work – just love the Shur-Rite.  Most of the time they are pretty ordinary looking metal pencils, until you pull them apart to see just how ingenious they are:

Early examples are marked “Pat. Applied For,” which is a reference to Julius Swanberg’s original patent application of November 10, 1919, which was issued on June 14, 1921 as number 1,381,517 and assigned to “Fabart Instrument Company, a Corporation of Illinois."

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.

Baby Bear Finally Stops By

A few years ago I found this one at a pen show.  It’s been so long I don’t even remember which one:

What attracted me to it was that it has an enameled and faceted barrel – a combination I hadn’t seen before – and the condition of the enamel is about a 9 out of 10, with just a little chipping next to the clip:

Best of all, since it was missing the cap I got it for next to nothing.  What a deal, I was thinking to myself.  I’ve got tons of these at home,, and I’ll just switch the cap from a common round example.  Right?

Wrong.

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 I'm Crazy

Joe Nemecek thought I was out of my mind to chase this one:

Pretty rough, he thought. Yeah, he’s right, but it was the first time I’d seen an Eversharp checking pencil in black enamel. As an aside, I did finally track down a navy blue one a few months ago:

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.

Rex Repaired

This article has been a long, long time coming.

Every time I circle back around to talk about the Rex Manufacturing Company, I’m reminded how all of that research started with this pencil:

The pencil – or rather what was left of it – was proudly featured on page 125 of The Catalogue. Unfortunately, while it has served valiantly as a great conversation piece, it has not been able to serve as well as a pencil:

In all the years I’ve had this little guy, I haven’t tried to repair it for one simple reason: I’m a stickler for originality and correctness, and I won’t do anything to restore a pencil unless I’m absolutely certain I am bringing it back to its original condition.

This Rex pencil is obviously different from its later progeny.  Here it is, shown next to the Gold Medal I was discussing just the other day (“Rex Redux” on July 23, 2013), with the earlier single piece tip and only the McNary 1924 patent date imprinted on it.

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.

A Very Accommodating Listo

I ran across this one at the Philadelphia Pen Show last January:

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.

Something I Wasn't Expecting

My expectations aren’t very high when I go to a general antique show, which is part of the fun. Once in a blue moon, I’ll find something really eye-popping, and without thousands of other eye-poppers around (like you’ll find at pen shows), those gems stand out like ten-foot-tall neon signs.

This is not about one of those finds.

No, what’s great about attending your run-of-the-mill antique show or flea market is that I tend to look more closely at mildly interesting things that might not even cause a blip on my radar at a pen show. Maybe I’m hungrier for something interesting to look at, or maybe with less to look at I’m just more focused, but whatever the cause, I pick up some interesting tidbits that way.

Take these two pencils, for example:

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.

Rex Redux

When this one showed up in an online auction, I got so much more than I bargained for:

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 Pencil With An Executive Touch

The "Executive" appears on page 79 of The Catalogue. Until recently, the one in the book was the only one I’d seen, so when this one showed up in an online auction, I thought it best to try to bring it home:

Both of my examples are marked only "The Executive" on the clip:

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 Sheaffer Quixote

Shortly before the Chicago Pen Show, Dan Reppert emailed me to ask me if I had any idea what these came from:

Nope. I have absolutely no idea. I knew it was a pencil mechanism of some sort, but the plastic bushings on these are unlike anything I’ve seen before.

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.

Looking Up a Few More Websters

"Webster" was a store brand for Sears Roebuck & Co., headquartered in Chicago. That’s one of those things I thought I’d known for a long time, so I was dismayed when I looked up the brand in The Catalogue and found at page 170 where I had characterized Webster as "a Chicago manufacturer." Mea culpa.

I did get everything else right, though, when it came to the Webster. I reported that it was in Chicago – check. I reported that Webster did not produce any pencils of its own design – correct. And I correctly identified the six examples pictured as being three examples made under the Rex Manufacturing Company patents (although I should have elaborated that they were made by National Pen Products, also of Chicago) and three modified Parker Parkettes:

But I also knew a few things about Webster that I thought were outside the scope of my pencil book at the time I wrote it.  For example, I knew there were also some Webster pens out there with military clips, which looked a lot like Sheaffer military clip Balances. I’ve had a few of the pens -- they always seemed to turn up in black. and seemed to be pretty well made with 14k nibs and a nice feel to them. The only reason I didn’t mention that fact was that I hadn’t seen a matching pencil for it.

You know where this one’s going . . .

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.

Dan Chimes In

After yesterday’s post, Dan Linn sent me some pictures of a Number 830 Eagle Torpedo from his collection:

His has the earlier knurled top:

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.

Collecting By The Numbers

It bugs me when there are unsightly gaps, whether they be in my memory of a series, or the series itself.   Today’s story involves both.

Since I was writing about early Eagle pencils yesterday, I had cause to go back and have another look at this picture, from “Eagle’s Banner Year of 1909" back on February 16, 2012 (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/02/eagle-week-part-4-eagles-banner-year-of.html):

With the No. 829 “Little Torpedo,” the No. 830 “Torpedo” and the No. 833 “Borneo,” I wondered out loud, where are numbers 831 and 832?

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.

A Few More Neat Eagles

I’ve found some really neat early pencils from the Eagle Pencil Company this year.  But I haven’t found them all.  Not by a longshot.

For example, Dan Linn had to send me a picture to let me know that the “Leopard,” which I featured here back on February 6 in yellow and purple (see “Sharpening My Understanding of the Spear” at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/02/sharpening-my-understanding-of-spear.html), also came in red:

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.

Look What's Turning Up - The Clips!

Pencil hounds like me can spot pencils like these from a mile away and know what they are.

Within three guesses, anyway.  Those clips aren’t bent, and that distinctive turned-up ball clip design narrows down the names you’ll likely find on these pencils to three high quality producers.

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.

Try Naming This One!

When this second-generation (1924-1930) metal Wahl Eversharp popped up in an online auction, I knew it was special:

If your eyes are sharp enough to see those offset squares and wonder what that pattern might be, your eyes will pop out when you see this one up close:

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.

I've Got Three Guesses . . . OK, Maybe More

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to circle back around to the Everfeed. When I last talked about the brand, it was in the article titled "My Find of the Year," originally posted December 31, 2011 (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-find-of-year.html). Remember these?

That’s because I haven’t had anything else to talk about since that article was written. But then just a couple weeks ago, I found something – it’s the green pencil shown here with an Everfeed:

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.

Does 26 Round Up To 94?

Recently I posted an article here about some interesting Waterman checking pencils that George Rimakis and Joe Nemecek shared with me at the Raliegh pen show:

I’d commented on the fact that Joe’s later example sports a later teardrop-shaped Waterman 94 clip, but I stopped short of suggesting that these pencils were part of the Waterman 94 line. Good thing, too, because I would have been 68 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.

One For the Fourth Edition

Here’s another one John Coleman is sharing with us:

Before you Autopoint guys get any ideas, no – the nose is not removable. This great flattop has "Guild" written in Old English script, both on the clip and just above it on the plastic:

And what’s more, John even had a lead container with the same script:

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.

Back To The Drawing Board

I missed something.

On Monday, I showed off John Coleman’s Ever Sharp mechanism, bearing a "Keeran & Co. Bloomington Ill." imprint, and proudly announced that part of one of the original Ever Sharps, introduced in 1913, had been found.

Nope.

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.

I Wish I Could Remember What I Did With This One

I was really glad when John Coleman sent me some pictures of 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.