My Christmas Gift to You

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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I give you a fact that, for whatever reason, people are having a hard time accepting: that the Carter’s Ink Company purchased DeWitt-LaFrance.  I don’t know why, but several times when the subject has come up in conversation, that statement is met with “well, the clips kind of look similar maybe” or “well, there might have been some relationship between them.” 

So, I give you the ability to bet someone a quarter then show them this article.

Some day I’ll find a hard copy of the 1925 volume of Office Appliances and reproduce the entire news article here – online searches of post-1922 documents are limited to those confounded “snippet views” that limit viewing for copyright reasons.  But here it is, published in 1925 - as much of it as I can piece together for you:

“Carter’s Ink Company Adds Fountain Pens and Pencils - Famous Boston House Buys Business of DeWitt-LaFrance Company, Makers of Fountain Pens and Propelling Pencils, and Enters Actively into This Field . . . “