The Waterbonds

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About four years ago, I wrote an article about a goofy Gold Bond pencil that I couldn’t fit neatly into either the Rex family of oversized flattops or the Eversharp Doricesque or Junioresque lines (“Neither Dis One Nor Dat One” on September 28, 2012 at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/09/neither-dis-one-or-dat-one.html):

In that article, I’d noted that while this one is made of a plastic vaguely reminiscent of a Parker Zephyr and it has thin bands vaguely reminiscent of a Wahl Junior and bands that might be Parker (I had incorrectly noted that Parker might have made some Gold Bonds, an assumption derived from lumping together everything under the National Pen Products umbrella), it didn’t directly match any known manufacturer’s fingerprints.

At the time I wrote the article, I didn’t know that there was a third family to consider.  A couple examples appeared on the cover of the fall 2013 issue of The Pennant:

The golden colored Gold Bond shown in the box is obviously a Waterman, and the pen directly to the left of it appears to be another Waterman-made Gold Bond based on the Lady Patricia - and apparently made in the same grey plastic as my “Udder One” from that article I posted four years ago.  There’s also two pens with the same goofy clip as my pencil, one in marbled burgundy and black like you’d see on a Parker (hmmm... and with thin gold bands like my goofy pencil, too), and the other in what looks very similar to Eversharp’s “cathay” celluloid used on the company’s Doric line.

I haven’t posted an update about this development for two reasons: (1) the picture mixes things up even more than they were before, and I was even less sure than before what was going on with my weird Gold Bond, and (2) I had never seen an example of a Waterman-made Gold Bond pencil.

Tackling these two problems in reverse order, Myk Daigle solved the latter of these issues when he made this one available:

The wide, poorly-plated band is anomolous for a Waterman, but otherwise I had no doubts about who made this one - it even featured the same sprung tip that kept falling off!  The imprint is located on the back of the cap, in exactly the same place you’d find a Waterman imprint:

Here it is shown with the closest Waterman relative in my collection:

Note that the comparable pencils were stamped “Watermans” on the clip:

Now that I’ve introduced the Waterman Gold Bonds, I’ll be able to delve into the brand’s development tomorrow without getting sidetracked . . .

The story continues here.