Thursday, February 19, 2015

Newsweek V?

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.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

That was how this pencil was advertised in an online auction:


With that upturned clip I was confident that it was another member of the Hicks family, but I had no idea what "Newsweek V" meant – of course that meant I had to bite and find out. When it arrived, I understood fully what the seller meant:


Yes, Virginia, the pencil does in fact say "Newsweek V"; however, that’s not a brand, but what was engraved by the owner of the pencil to personalize it. The brand is stamped on the nose:


"LT & Son." There isn’t much out there on this, and I’ve probably forgotten who this stands for three times or more. It was another New York jewelry firm, whose writing instruments were without question manufactured by Hicks. No, it wasn’t Louis Tiffany & Son – I remember following up on that lead only to hit a dead end. Someone told me at one point who this is . . . and I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember what the name of the firm was. I’m hoping now that I’ve posted this, someone will remind me so that I can finally document this.

UPDATE:  David Nishimura answered this question in a nice article he posted over at his blog:  Louis Tamis & Sons, a New York jewelry firm founded in 1909.


The direct link to David's article is http://vintagepensblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/lt-louis-tiffany.html.

3 comments: