Two's a Coincidence . . . Or Is It?

Frank Hoban had two of these at the DC show a few weeks ago, and I bought both of them:

What a great imprint these have: “Belmont Handy-Pencil”:

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.

Come Together

At the DC show a few weeks ago, this set caught my eye on Jean Buchser’s table.  The price was fair, but since the price included one of those pesky pens I don’t collect, I asked if I could borrow it for a few photographs:

The clip on the pen reads “The Union Pen,” while the matching pencil is marked “Unity” crowned by the letter U in a wreath:

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.

Underrated

Joe Nemecek sent me an email directing me to this one in an online auction and told me that I needed to get one of these, and he promised me that it wouldn’t cost me very much:

By the time I got around to reading his email, the auction had closed, and no one had even made the measly opening bid of $2.99.  I had to agree that the pencil was pretty neat, so I emailed the seller to see if he planned to relist the item.  He did – and I immediately placed a twenty-dollar bid on the thing.

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.

Eversharp's Symphonies

The Eversharp Symphony is discussed on page 77 of The Catalogue, and it is usually found in three flavors:

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

It’s not all that unusual for me to learn that I’ve gotten something wrong here.  Most of the time, I’m throwing things out there in the hopes that someone out there will read what I’ve written and have the missing piece of the puzzle that says “nuh uh.”   I never mind.  This is all new stuff, and at the end of the day, I figure it was worth it if I learned something.

What is unusual is when I’m the one that finds that piece and I get to say “nuh uh” to myself (and therefore, to you).  This is one of those stories, and it begins with something that has nothing to do with pencils – or should I say, almost nothing.  The only thing today’s find has to do with pencils is the fact that I – a pencil collector – happen to collect other things, as well.  Those who have visited my pencil museum are often surprised to see what fills the display case under my lead displays:

That’s the back half of Truman the cat, my faithful companion at the museum, who had to swoop in for a closer look at my collection of vintage stapling machines the instant I opened the cabinet to take this picture.  I haven’t written a book about these things yet, but it’s on my bucket list.  A lot of ingenuity went into these things, and if it weren’t for the fact that they are so big and so heavy, I’d probably have quite a few more of them. . .

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.

Nice Threads!

Stuart Hawkinson stopped by my table with this one during the DC show.  He warned me that he was keeping this one before he showed it to me,  but he said he thought I might want to have a look at it.  You are correct, sir!

Doesn’t look much like a pencil, does it?  That is, until you unscrew the top and pull out what’s inside:

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.

Speaking of Parker . . .

At the DC show this year, George Rimakis didn’t bring anything for me to buy.  He did, however, bring me something droolworthy to photograph:

The pattern on this cap is known as the “Coronet,” and it’s on the uberrare end of the Parker 51 spectrum:

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 Most Expensive Pencil I Ever Saw

No, I didn’t buy it.  Let’s just get that out of the way right up front.  I don’t even know what the price is.

On page 16 of The Catalogue I included some pointers on how to use the price guide the book includes.  Of course, the cautionary text has largely been ignored (every so often I receive an email from someone with a pencil I listed as “unique” and assumes that means their pencil is worth meeeeelyuns of dollars).

But another part of what I wrote hasn’t been ignored – the part in which I described “pen to match syndrome”:  when an otherwise ordinary pencil is accompanied by a highly collectible pen, the pencil will command a premium just because collectors who own the high-dollar pens want to put sets together.

So what happens when there’s a stratospherically spectacular pen out there and a matching pencil turns up?  Say, for example, one of the fabled Parker “snake” pens from the 1910s?

You could stop me right there.  “Parker didn’t make pencils in the 1910s,” you could say, and you would be right.  Parker’s first pencils were the “Lucky Lock” pencils introduced in 1922.  But . . . remember that Parker had the silver work on the company’s snake pens done by George W. Heath & Co.  And Heath not only made Parker snake pens, they made these:

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.

Quite a Bit North of the Mason-Dixon Line

I stumbled across this one at the Chicago Show at Bob Everett’s table.  When I picked it up, I was sure I knew what it was, but again I was reminded that I won’t learn anything new if I assume I know what something is:

That brown marbled plastic with white streaks in it is very distinctive, and that’s what had me convinced I was looking at an Eagle.  Here it is, in between an Eagle and a Belmont:

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.

Establishing a Connection

Sometimes it’s kind of spooky how pieces of this giant puzzle just fall into place.   Not very long ago, I wrote an article on the “Never Dull” pencils, which appear on pencils marked Eclipse, Albert Howard and the “Rexhold.”   Here’s an example of the Eclipse, in gold fill, next to the sterling Rexhold:

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.

Alligators and Snakes and . . . Karungs, Oh My

Eversharp did some really, really weird things towards the end of its forty-year run.  Between around 1950 and 1953, the company made pencils wrapped in . . . really, really weird things.  On page 78 of The Catalogue, you’ll find this picture of the alligator and snakeskin pencils the company made:

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.

Presto! A Revelation!

On the last day of the DC show, Robert Speerbrecher visited my table with a stack of slotter boxes he’d acquired from the collection of Bert Heiserman, the proprietor of Pen Haven who passed away a couple of months ago.  Was I interested in anything in there, he asked?  Among a few other things (more on those later), I saw this one and I had to admit that yes, I was:

The mechanism is a cap-actuated repeater mechanism – interesting, since it’s also a ringtop, so you have to push down on the ring to advance the lead.  The barrel has some intricate machining:

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.

Believe It Or Not

Joe Nemecek called me excitedly a few weeks ago to tell me he’d finally managed to acquire a “Ripley Vacumatic.”   It would have been easier at the time for me to share his excitement if I had any idea what a “Ripley Vacumatic” was, but now that I’ve learned a little about them I’ve got to admit these are really neat.  At the DC show last weekend, Joe and I had a little time on Sunday to set up my lightbox and take a few shots:

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 Bug

Early metal Redipoint pencils, made by Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota, are like Sheaffer pencils – they are so good that they are easy to take for granted.  I have a couple dozen of them laying about, most of which came to me because they were included with the pencil I was really trying to buy.  While I haven’t gone through them to start categorizing them in detail – yet – they check in but they don’t check out because I appreciate how well they work.

At the Raleigh Show, however, this one caught my eye and I bought it on purpose:

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 Good Pencils

I’ve picked up a couple tidbits of information concerning Eversharp-made Gold Bonds.  Gold Bond was a Montgomery Ward store brand, and over the years they were made by National Pen Products, then by Wahl-Eversharp , then by Parker.  When I last visited the topic, the family portrait looked like 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.

D. All Of The Above

I ran an article a few months ago about a “tree trunk” Eversharp, which at first blush looks to be a match for the Waterman “tree trunk” pens.  But when I disassembled it, it turned out to be an ordinary Eversharp pencil with a custom made tree trunk cap:

Yeah . . . “ordinary.”  Like I wouldn’t trade a couple kidneys for 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.

So That's What That Is!

At the Ohio Show last November, Rob Bader had a couple things of which he couldn’t make heads or tails. They were in such bad condition that they didn’t really have any monetary value, but he thought they were too neat to just throw away – so instead, he put them in a picnic basket and in the dead of night, he left them on the doorstep at Jon’s Home For Orphaned and Wayward Pencils -- a cigar box in my basement that is sort of a halfway house between the garbage can and my collection.

Sometimes, one of the poor souls at JHFOWP will donate their important parts to get another pencil back on the road, and what’s left goes into the trash.  But every once in a while, in cases such as this, one will be identified as something special, even in its current state, and will be paroled as is into polite society.  Thinking about the American Perpetual from yesterday’s article, particularly when I looked at it with the cap removed to reload it, led me to finally identify 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.

All American

I’ve had this one for years.  It appears on page 19 of The Catalogue, and it’s one of the few pencils in my collection that Joe Nemecek has gently tried to get me to part with over the years:

This is a No. 26 “Perpetual” made by the American Pencil Company:

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.

Welcome to Pencil Island

“Do you have a Decat?”  Michael Little’s email asked.  When the answer was no, my Arizona connection hooked me up:

The faceted clip matches those found on Eagles, Majestics and a whole bunch of other lower-tier pencils, and is marked “Made in USA”:

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.

Two Mississippi . . .

It happened twice.  At the Chicago show in May, Rob Bader came up to me with that familiar look on his face, holding a pencil he knew I’d have to have.  In Raleigh a month later, it was if we’d rewound the tape (if anyone “rewinds” “tapes” anymore) and replayed the scene.  Bada bing.  Bada boom.

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.

Bigger and Better Things

Without missing a beat after the Salz-Rite (‘Salrite) - Shur-Rite trademark fiasco that ended in early 1923 (see yesterday’s post), Salz apparently dropped the ‘Salrite name.  But it wasn’t long before Salz did something else with its clips, and since this innovation appeared on both pens and pencils, it became the most recognizable and distinctive feature of Salz writing instruments of the 1920s.   I call it the “window pane” clip, and it appears on great oversized Salz pencils like these:

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's All Right . . . Mostly

I won’t say which of my pencil brethren was speaking ill of the Salz recently.  To each their own, and I’ll be the first one to admit that Salz made some really terrible stuff.  Then again, almost all of them did at one point or another (I’ve got more than a few Eversharps that only an Eversharp fanatic could love).

But Salz claims an important little corner in the pencil world, mostly from their spinoff company, “Pencil Products Corporation,” which turned out some nifty metal pencils which were offered as Diamond Point’s first pencils (marketed as the Autosharp – see “Auto-Confusing, More Like” on January 30, 2012 – http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/01/auto-confusing-more-like.html — and “Whew!” on March 2, 2013 at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/03/whew.html).  Others were marketed directly by Salz under the tradename “Sta-Sharp.”  Here’s a few examples that are worthy of note, taken from page 132 of The Catalogue:

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.