One of the best parts of corresponding with my fellow enthusiasts by email, rather than face-to-face, was that Roger could not see the blank expression on the face of a man who had absolutely no idea what Occam’s Razor was. I’m so much cooler online, as the song goes.
So I gave Roger the binary equivalent of a sage nod while simultaneously I researched this mysterious razor – and found that it was in fact a tool I had been carrying with me for years yet never knew what it was called. Occam’s Razor isn’t a physical tool, but an analytical one attributed to the medieval philosopher William of Occam that one should make only those assumptions that are necessary. Boiled down, Occam’s "razor" slices away unnecessary assumptions and leaves the simplest answer to a problem.
That means I know exactly what Occam would think of this one:
I like to think Occam might have gulped and said "Wow, that’s a big honkin’ burgundy Vacumatic pencil," but I doubt he would have been so impressed. Nevertheless, big honkin’ and burgundy would be accurate, as this one measures 5 1/4 inches stem to stern and is a bit bigger around than one usually sees. It’s at the top end where Occam would take issue:
To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, 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.
2 comments:
Seems to me that Occam does exhaust opportunity. Nice article.
We really don't know when Parker was experimenting with the silver plastic jewels. The clips with silver being used as a base metal and the gold outer layer, that was heavily alloyed with silver, probably was not produced until after the second world war started and metals were restricted. The pen companies could get all the gold and silver they needed, but not other metals, such as brass, aluminum and so forth. The blue diamond clips were produced as early as late '38 or '39, but used a brass alloy base metal. The silver colored plastic jewels were mounted on 51's sometime in 1942, around the same time that they switched from the Speedline fillers, to the "disposable" fillers with plastic plunger rods.
I think there is a possibility that you guys might not have considered. Parker was pressed for producing writing instruments during the war, as they, and the other pen companies, were producing things other than pens and pencils for the "war effort". They may have wanted to get some demonstrator pencils out to their sales reps and dealers. I would imagine they had pen and pencil back stock parts and maybe nearly complete pencils that were made a few years before, for repairs and replacement parts, that were the same as current production, bands, colors, even the clips. The pencils being sold didn't have the blue diamond, no biggie, the demonstrator pencils were not intended for public consumption anyway. I think your pencil could very well have come from the factory as you found it, during world war two, when the silver based clips and silver colored plastic jewels were being produced.
I have found a number of Parker Streamline Duofold fountain pens with 1940's date codes on the barrels and clips that the base metal was indeed silver, but otherwise looked identical to the Duofolds from 1929 to 34. They were made to meet the demand of dealers and ultimately their customers.
I would like to see what Occam would think of my Norelco electric razor ;-)
Michael McNeil
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