Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A Few More Presto Points

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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(Note: the last installment in the Presto story can be found at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-couple-more-tumblers-click-into-place.html ). 

As the puzzle of Samuel Kanner’s Presto line of repeating pencils continues to come together, here’s a couple other examples that have turned up lately:


The smaller of the two is the only "ringtop" I’ve found. I’ve got to put ringtop in quotes because the ring is presumably what once threaded through the hole in the cap:


I find the large green example even more interesting – it’s another example of the "Repeeto," in a striking green celluloid, shown here next to the Repeeto from that last article:


I suggested earlier that Eclipse might have somehow been involved in the early development of the Presto. When this Repeeto is posed next to a couple of the Eclipse pencils in my collection, this is looking more and more likely:


But what’s going on inside this one is interesting, too. You might have noticed in that picture of the two Repeetos that the nose on the brown example is a longer, two-piece assembly. The green one has a one-piece nose, and unlike the brown one, the mechanism doesn’t want to come out.


I don’t have answers yet on these – just better defined questions.

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