Two Interesting Brown & Bigelow Pencils

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Michael Quitt brought this one to me at the DC show:

While I recognized it as a Brown and Bigelow lighter pencil, this one has two things which interested me.  First is the way it’s put together – you’d expect to pull the cap off and there’s your lighter, but no . . .

The lighter is in the middle of the pencil, facing away from the clip

Now before you think I’m a complete idiot and you write me to tell me “why don’t you just take out the lighter and put it in the other end,” that’s not a possibility.  The bushing at the top is necked down to clear where the clip assembly protrudes into the barrel at the top end and prevents the lighter from being inserted from the top.  Nope, this is the way this one was made.

The other thing I liked was the imprint:

It’s got a Brown and Bigelow sales sample imprint.

The other one along these lines I’ve got to show you today is another “trick” pencil - this one with a knife built in:

On the clip is the telltale “BB”:

The imprint on the barrel resolves any doubt concerning it might be some other B and some other B:

I always check the tang of the knife blade whenever I see one of these . . . you never know what you’ll find:

“P2281782.”  I thought this might be a patent number, and it was:

Feliz A. Mirando applied for this patent for a folding knife on March 10, 1941, and it was issued on May 5, 1942.  Mirando assigned his patent to the Imperial Knife Company of Providence, Rhode Island.