Thursday, August 25, 2016

Maybe I Should Leave Some Spacers

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; 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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My system for categorizing Eversharp Skylines is published in 
The Catalogue on page 72.  Although it hasn’t caught on, it’s held up pretty well for me - nearly all of the Skylines I’ve seen in the wild fit neatly into these classes:


From left, I referred to these as:
Skyline Standard I: striated top section, thin band
Skyline Standard II: striated top section thick band
Presentation: ribbed gold filled top section
Presentation Vertical: gold filled top, lengthwise lines
Presentation Dart: gold filled top, engine turned design
Solid I: single color/material barrel with no bands
Solid II: single color/material barrel, thin center band
Solid III: single color/material barrel, thick center band
Streamliner: simplified clip/derby assembly
Press Clip I: simple clip pressed into barrel, no bands
Press Clip II: simple clip pressed into barrel, single band
Press Clip Twist Model: twist action pencil
Press Clip Moore Patent: feature a Moore patented action (these days, I call these “Lovejoy patent Skylines”).

In fact, since the book was published, the only additions I’ve made to the above have been in the “Press Clip” series, and I haven’t added anything to that area in four years (see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/06/eversharp-skyline-press-clip-v.html):


From top, there’s the Press Clip I and II, augmented by the Press Clip III (single wide band), IV (no bands at all) and V (thin center band only).

Obviously I’m bringing all of this up to let you know I’ve got another one to add to the Press Clip clan, and I wonder whether I call it VI or whether I ought to leave a few numbers in between, since it feels like there should be something in between the simple single-band variations I’ve shown you so far and this one:


This one also comes from Rob Bader - with no provenance other than the “junk box provenance” of being found in the wild.   Although it seems to be a one-off, I suppose I’ll give it a VI if/when there’s a second edition of The Catalogue.

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