Keith presented me with the weirdest [stuff] I’ve seen in a long time. It is so weird, in fact, that I broke two rules to buy it from him: it’s not American, and it’s not marked. I had a blast all weekend showing this thing off:
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.
The "sin" pencils are fascinating, and reminded me of a post on Phil Munson's "Fountain Pen Restoration" blog. He described a Spors fountain pen with a compass on the top of the cap. When the compass was unscrewed from the cap, a set of five tiny dice fell out, very much like your sin pencil. Link to his post below...
ReplyDeleteJohn Hubbard
https://munsonpens.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/spors-fountain-pen-entertainment-center/
You're right, John. I couldn't say whether there's a Spors connection other than general similarity, though. I have other pencils with dice on board that have no apparent connection to these (a topic for another day). I did an article awhile ago here on a "Biltwell" pencil with a compass on top, but that had a knife inside rather than dice.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Richard Binder, Frank Spors was a Minnesota importer who brought in all sorts of things from eastern Asia, not Germany. IF its Spors and IF Binder's right, these might have come from Japan, not Germany as I thought.
And the Spors logo shown on Richard's page answers another question I've had.....
Frank Spors did also import from Germany. In conversations with his grandson, he did so up until WWII when he had to curtail this due to his German heritage and cousins being German Officers. Whether he continued to import from Germany after the War, I have no direct knowledge.
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