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.