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Note: This article appeared in the Winter 2015 and Spring 2016 issues of The Pennant, and is being reproduced here as a five-part series.
How Wahl Really Got Into the Pen Business and How Sheaffer Really Got Into the Pencil Business . . . At the Same Time.
By Jonathan Veley
In the second decade of the Twentieth Century, two new writing
instrument manufacturers – the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co. and Wahl Eversharp –
emerged seemingly out of nowhere to join L.E. Waterman Co. and Parker Pen Co. to
form a fraternity of companies collectors now refer to as the “Big Four” pen
manufacturers in the United States.
A major factor in the meteoric rise of both Sheaffer and
Eversharp was a new marketing strategy: offering fountain pens and mechanical
pencils as sets. Although a few Nineteenth Century makers had
offered matched dip pens and pencils or combination writing instruments, with
the rise of the fountain pen industry in the latter part of the century the
practice was largely abandoned.
Established makers such as Mabie Todd & Co., as an example,
continued to manufacture jewelry-quality pencils, but generally maintained
these lines separately from the new fountain pens Mabie Todd introduced. Parker and Waterman established themselves
exclusively as fountain pen firms in the 1880s; Waterman, in particular, was
actively hostile to the idea of expanding product lines to include pencils of
any sort.[i]
Eversharp and Sheaffer both appeared to hit upon the idea of
selling fountain pens and practical companion pencils together almost
simultaneously, in 1917. The two
companies approached the idea from opposite sides of the coin: Wahl was already producing Charles Keeran’s
Eversharp pencils and added fountain pens to its product line with the
acquisition of the Boston Fountain Pen Company; Sheaffer, on the other hand,
began as a fountain pen company and added “Sharp Point” pencils patented by
Walter Sheaffer to the company’s lineup. Parker and Waterman, on the other hand, didn’t
wake up and grudgingly develop matching pencils to accompany their fountain
pens until the early 1920s.[ii] By then, mechanical pencils had ceased to be
a point of distinction among writing instrument manufacturers and had become a
point of parity.
Sheaffer and Wahl Eversharp’s stories concerning exactly how
each hit upon and capitalized upon this stroke of marketing genius has remained
murky for nearly a century, with gaps and inconsistencies in the accepted
versions of each company’s story. There
is, however, a third, untold story, which neatly fills in all the gaps and
resolves all the inconsistencies in both the Eversharp and Sheaffer stories . .
. perfectly.
The Accepted Version of the Sheaffer Story
Walter Sheaffer entered the fountain pen business in 1912. His new lever-filled fountain pens were an
immediate commercial success, and Sheaffer quickly established offices in New
York, Chicago and elsewhere. In 1915, he
litigated his famous patent infringement case against C.E. Barrett and former
partner George Kraker, which Sheaffer ultimately won.
As abruptly as if he had been bopped on the head with a
Newtonian apple, Sheaffer took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to dash
off plans for an entirely new mechanical pencil and applied for a patent on
July 12, 1917. By the fall of 1917,
national advertising campaigns were launched for his new “Sharp Point” and the
pen man entered into full-scale production of these new pencils. Walter’s pencil, unlike most other pencil
designs of the era, seemed to flow from his mind fully formed in one go: there was no immediate need for refinements
or improvements to clean up his original design, and his patent date of
November 5, 1918 was stamped on millions of metal Sheaffer pencils through the mid-1920s.
Figure 1. A typical Sheaffer “Giftie Set” from the early 1920s. From a catalog dated 1922 at the PCA’s library, Pencollectorsofamerica.com. Courtesy PCA. |
Sheaffer was a genius; however, as the casting of the preceding
paragraph suggests, it seems extremely unlikely that a fountain pen designer
would concoct – in one go – a design for a brand new mechanical pencil from
scratch, or that a five-year-old pen company would be able to gear up
production for an entirely new product so quickly. It is also odd how little interest Sheaffer showed
in designing mechanical pencils after this:
his subsequent contributions to the art were nothing more than the
design for the familiar flared cap and a mechanical pencil he ostensibly co-invented
in the late 1920s with prolific pencil inventor Lucifer Most – given Most’s overwhelming
contributions to the field, Walter’s name was most certainly added to the
patent application as a mere courtesy to Most’s benefactor.
Much more likely is that some unsung and undocumented hero devised
the Sheaffer Sharp Point pencil, which Sheaffer patented in his own name, and that
figure likely also helped Sheaffer’s fledgling pen company enter into
large-scale production of the new pencils.
The Accepted Version of the Wahl Eversharp Story
Charles R. Keeran of
Bloomington, Illinois developing a new mechanical pencil in the fall of 1913,
which he began marketing as the “Ever Sharp” by the end of that year. [iii] In 1915, Keeran’s Eversharp Pencil Company hired
a Chicago firm, the Wahl Adding Machine Company (which had been incorporated in
1905 to manufacture John Wahl’s patented adding attachment for typewriters) to
manufacture pencils. Wahl liked the
pencils so much that the company decided to get into the writing instrument
business by acquired a controlling interest in Keeran’s company. Wahl then
purchased the Boston Fountain Pen Company in 1917, renamed itself “The Wahl
Company” and thereafter manufactured and sold Eversharp pencils on its own
account as well as Boston Fountain Pens under the new name “Tempoint.”
There is a more detailed account
of how a Chicago pencil maker happened upon an obscure, local company such as
the Boston Fountain Pen Company, albeit from a somewhat compromised source: Charles Keeran himself, who was ousted by
Wahl in August, 1917. Keeran (who believed
he was not fairly compensated for his efforts) wrote a letter Wahl’s directors
in 1928, in which he implored them to pay him more out of the goodness of their
hearts; while the exercise was predictably unsuccessful, Keeran’s six-page
letter extolls his many contributions to Wahl’s success, including his role in
orchestrating the purchase of the Boston Fountain Pen Company.
In Keeran’s letter, he indicates
that he first noticed fountain pens made by the Boston Fountain Pen Company
being sold at Wanamaker’s New York store in 1913, while he was test-marketing
his new pencils in that store. Keeran
says when he heard that Boston might be available, he thought his pencil and
the pen would make “a wonderful team,” and “for months” he tried to convince
Wahl to purchase the company.
On September 12, 1916, Keeran says
he went to Boston to meet with Charles Brandt, the owner of the Boston Fountain
Pen Company. “[I]n one hour” Keeran
claims he negotiated an option for sixty days to buy “the whole works” for
$50,000.00, then procured an extension of the option until January 10,
1917. On December 26, 1916, Keeran says
he boarded a train for Boston with Wahl’s Vice President, C.S. Roberts, to
exercise the option. However, when they
arrived Brandt refused to sell, leaving Keeran and Roberts with “little to do
but sit in the hotel and play rummy” for two weeks while lawyers worked things
out. The transaction finally closed sometime
in January, 1917.
According to Keeran, “I had
developed the finest pencil made and had brought to it as a team mate the
finest pen,” and no other source controverts Keeran’s claim to have
orchestrated the deal. Yet in August,
1917, Keeran is abruptly informed that Wahl had replaced him as sales manager. Within weeks, Keeran resigns.
Figure 3. The conclusion of Charles Keeran’s 1928 letter. Bob Bolin has reproduced the entire letter at http://unllib.unl.edu/Bolin_resources/pencil_page/keeran/index.htm. |
Despite the whiney tone of
Keeran’s letter overall, most of his story is corroborated by a close
examination of the evidence. However, three
aspects of Keeran’s story fail to make sense: (1) If the Boston option was good
through January 10, 1917, why did Keeran and Roberts board a train the day
after Christmas from Chicago to Boston to consummate the deal? (2) Why would Charles Brandt be convinced to
sell his business to a complete stranger in just an hour, renew the option,
then refuse to sell? (3) Why would
Charles Keeran, who negotiated a deal which by all accounts catapulted Wahl
Eversharp to fame and prosperity in early 1917, suddenly find himself ousted in
August, 1917?
Enter William E. Smith
One detail in Keeran’s account which stands out is from whom
he learned that the Boston Fountain Pen Company might be available: “from one of my super-salesmen, ‘Bill’
Smith.” In Keeran’s self-laudatory,
six-page letter, this is the only credit Keeran gives to anyone other than
himself for having a good idea. There’s
a reason why Keeran dropped Smith’s name, and once those reasons are explored,
Keeran’s statement that he casually thought Boston pens “might make a good
teammate” for his pencils takes on an entirely different context.
William Smith was not, as his letter implies, merely one of
Keeran’s salesmen: he was a hugely
influential character and nearly forgotten character in the writing instrument
business, and it is his career trajectory which brings the Sheaffer and Wahl
stories together.
Figure 4. Bill Smith is shown here relaxing with daughter Helen years after the events of our story. From the November, 1922 issue of Office Appliances, at page 49. |
Although a name like William E. Smith may be about as common
a name as one might find, he appears to have been the same man who filed a
patent application on May 7, 1889 for an ink shutoff valve, granted as patent
number 427,444 on May 6, 1890. Although
the patent is unassigned, the inventor’s residence provided on the application
is Berwick, Pennsylvania – less than twelve miles from the Paul Wirt Fountain
Pen Company in Bloomsburg, and Wirt had an uncharacteristically cooperative
relationship with the fledgling and equally litigious L.E. Waterman Company.
The man who was clearly the William E. Smith in our story began
working for Waterman around 1905,[iv] and Smith quickly rose through the ranks at his
new place of employment. Pen historians
are well-acquainted with a 1907 lecture concerning the history of fountain pens
and how L.E. Waterman pens were made on behalf of the Company, an abstract of
which appeared in the January, 1907 issue of The Druggists’ Circular.[v] Less well known is that William E. Smith was
the presentor. By 1910, he is listed as
an officer of Aikin Lambert & Co. (which was by 1907 under L. E. Waterman’s
control), and in 1911, Waterman announced that the company had appointed Smith
to be its “Western manager,” with offices in Chicago.[vi] Smith’s gift of gab made him a darling of the
stationers’ press, which regularly reported on “Bill’s” activities.
Figure 5. This article, published in the January, 1907 issue of The Druggists’ Circular, is well known among Waterman collectors; nearly forgotten is that it was penned by William E. Smith. |
By 1913, there were signs that something was amiss in
Smith’s relationship with his employer.
On August 11, 1913, Geyer’s
Stationer reported that L.E. Waterman’s auditor, Frank S. Waterman, paid a
visit to Smith’s offices in Chicago “on Thursday last;” at the time, Smith was
“calling on the trade” in Cleveland, Ohio.
The article does not indicate whether Smith was expecting Waterman; however,
according to the article Waterman boarded a train for Cleveland the following
day, “where he held a brief conference with W.E. Smith.”[vii]
It
seems unlikely that Auditor Waterman was going to such lengths to track down William
Smith in order to compliment him on a tidy set of books.
Two months later, in October, 1913, the next directory of
Aikin Lambert’s officers is published, and William E. Smith’s name is no longer
listed. A report of November 3, 1913,
states Smith was reportedly on a trip eastward to Indianapolis and Columbus,
and westward towards St. Louis on behalf of Waterman, which “requires about ten
days to cover.”[viii] However, by November 24, when Fred P. Seymour
of Waterman arrives in Chicago, Smith still hasn’t left Ohio. Seymour was disappointed -- he “was expecting
to meet W. E. Smith, Chicago Manager of the Waterman Co., at some point in
Ohio, and proceed to Chicago with him.”[ix]
Was L.E. Waterman sending a company man to find its
wandering Western manager in Ohio and escort him back to his office? In hindsight, it was clear that the L.E. Waterman
Co. no longer believed Smith was really plying the fields for Waterman business,
and that Smith was planning his next career move. When the annual Chicago Stationers’ Dinner
rolled around on January 10, 1914, William Smith (whose presence was as much an
annual institution as the event itself) was conspicuously absent; he did not even
telegraph his regrets, as did so many other prominent members who were
unavailable that evening. L.E. Waterman,
on the other hand, was well-represented at the banquet by several company men,
including Seymour, and while none of them are identified as Smith’s replacement,
no explanation was offered as to why L.E. Waterman’s Chicago manager failed to
attend the Chicago Stationers’ Banquet.
Figure 6. The 1914 Chicago Stationers’ Dinner, from the January 17, 1914 issue of The American Stationer, at page 4. |
Smith and Waterman had likely parted ways by that point, and
Smith was laying low. He shows up,
apparently unexpectedly, on January 30, 1914 in Minneapolis, where he received
a hero’s welcome at the Minneapolis Stationers’ Banquet. “Loud and frequent calls were made to the
toastmaster for an impromptu speech from the Hon. Bill Smith,” The American Stationer said in a report
dated February 7, 1914. “Men should
reach the height of their ambition when they have gained the love and respect
of their fellowmen, and the cheers that greeted him, when he arose to speak,
echoed throughout the hall. This
silver-tongued orator held his audience in perfect silence as he related the
gradual development of trade associations and effectively drove them home with
wit and humor the good derived from them.”[x]
Loved, respected, silver-tongued and “Honorable.” Smith was described as everything but a
Waterman man. Just a few days later, he
would have a new title.
Colonel Smith Reports to Fort Madison
On February 14, 1914, The
American Stationer reported that the “Honorable” William E. Smith had
returned to Chicago and was working for the “Shafer Pen Company.”[xi]
The
American Stationer reported in August, 1914, that Smith was in charge of
Sheaffer’s booth at the Jewelers’ Convention in Chicago along with B.T.
Coulson, the Secretary of the company at the time.[xii] In the August report, for the first time,
Smith is referred to as “Colonel,” an appellation he may have coined rather
than earned through actual military service.
One wonders whether Smith, having left L.E. Waterman and his title as
“Western Manager,” had been asked what his office was with Sheaffer and, having
none as yet, flippantly responded with “Colonel,” a name which stuck. This is supported not only by Smith’s
unexplained promotion from “Honorable” to “Colonel,” but also by the fact that
when The American Stationer casually
made reference to the fact that Smith had become Sheaffer’s Chicago Office Manager
in October, 1914, he was referred to only as “Mr. Smith.”[xiii]
Figure 7. The announcement from The American Stationer of William Smith’s employment by the “Shafer Pen Company.” |
Walter A. Sheaffer traveled to Chicago to attend the Chicago
Stationers’ Dinner with Smith in January, 1915; for Smith, it must have been a
triumphant return, after missing the previous year’s event due to his
separation from L.E. Waterman. He was
apparently in rare form, “with his high hat and expansive shirt bosom,
dispensing good wishes and good cheer wherever he moved.”[xiv]
Smith had become a key Sheaffer employee at a pivotal moment
in Sheaffer’s history. In late January,
1915, Sheaffer returned to Chicago for a sit-down with Smith and his sales
force, “to plan the year’s work and to talk over matters of interest to the
company and the salesmen.”[xv] There is no question what the first (and
perhaps only) item on the agenda was for that meeting: Sheaffer’s patent litigation with his former
business partner, George Kraker, the trial of which was scheduled to begin two
weeks later. Walter Sheaffer’s position
was precarious in 1915, a notion which is difficult to visualize a century
later. A summary of the innovations leading
up to Sheaffer’s lawsuit with Kraker illustrates how Sheaffer’s very survival –
and William Smith’s livelihood – depended on a very uncertain outcome.
Today, Walter Sheaffer remains widely credited as the
inventor of the lever-filler fountain pen, but that legacy is not accurate. The first to patent a lever-filled fountain
pen in the United States was John Barnes of Rockford, Illinois, who applied for
his patent on June 3, 1903 and received patent number 738,876 with lightning
speed (by patent standards) on September 15, 1903.[xvi] Patent drawings for Walter Sheaffer’s first
patent, applied for on March 2, 1908, show a flat “compression plate” which slid
up and down between rails mounted at the end of the barrel. Without a spring, no tension held the lever
flush with the barrel, so Sheaffer’s 1908 pen featured a locking ring to hold
the lever flush with the barrel.
Sheaffer’s patent was issued as number 896,861 on August 25, 1908; on
December 10, 1912, Sheaffer received patent number 1,046,660, for a better way
of securing his compression plate to the bottom of the barrel, but as was the
case in his 1908 design, the compression plate was also flat – leaving the lever
to flop around and randomly discharge ink.
Obviously, neither design worked well.
Sheaffer’s third patent, for which he applied on February 19,
1913 (issued as patent number 1,118,240 on November 24, 1914) was for a
flexible compression bar which stayed flush with the barrel wall by tension, which
in turn held the lever down at rest. When
the lever was lifted, the plate would flex inward; when released, the lever
would snap flush with the barrel as the plate returned to its resting position.
Figure 8. Walter Sheaffer’s patent number 1,118,240, which he applied for on February 19, 1913. |
There was only one problem with Sheaffer’s design: it may not have been his idea.
Whether it was Sheaffer himself or one of his employees who
devised the version of a compression bar that would make Sheaffer’s pens such a
huge success may not have mattered, so long as everybody remained in Walter
Sheaffer’s happy family, but they didn’t.
George Kraker and salesman Harvey Craig left Sheaffer, and the newly
formed Kraker Pen Company established a factory in Kansas City, Missouri during
fiscal year 1913-1914:[xvii] Kraker applied for his own version of a
lever-filled pen on February 25, 1914,[xviii]
and on April 9, 1914, Craig filed an application for a lever-filler which was nearly
identical to Sheaffer’s design.[xix]
Figure 9. Harvey Craig’s patent number 1,242,323, applied for on April 9, 1914. |
First to file a patent application is not necessarily the
winner, and the United States Patent Office quickly began working to resolve
the Interference Action (the term used for proceedings to determine which party
was the true inventor in cases where conflicting patents are applied for with
respect to the same innovation). In the
meantime, Sheaffer sued everybody for patent infringement – Kraker, Craig and even
C.E. Barrett, the first named defendant in the litigation, whose only
involvement in the affair was to supply parts to Kraker’s new company. Kraker and Craig counterclaimed against Sheaffer,
also for infringement.
Everything
was on the line in this Midwestern smackdown, both for Sheaffer and for
Kraker. Whichever party was found to
have infringed upon the other would not only be prevented from continuing to
produce the disputed design, but would pay significant damages to the other for
the infraction. Although Sheaffer was
the bigger player, that only meant the damages that could be assessed against
him would likewise be greater. As
between these two, whoever prevailed in the case would likely own the other.
Presumably,
Sheaffer was in Chicago to assure Smith and his staff of the company’s chances
of success and continued domination of the lever-filled pen market. On February 11, 1915, Sheaffer was back in
Chicago when the trial began
in the case of Walter A. Sheaffer vs. C.E.
Barrett. US District Ct, Northern District of IL, Eastern Division. In Equity.
No. 348.[xx] Arguments in the case would rage
on for months, generating a transcript in excess of 2,000 pages.
Regardless
of who won Sheaffer’s case against Kraker, the winner would not have the
exclusive rights to market any lever filler fountain pen – only the
version that Kraker and Sheaffer were fighting over. What might happen if some third party came up
with another, perhaps better version of the lever filler which did not violate
either the Sheaffer or Kraker patents?
Was that issue raised or addressed during Sheaffer’s meeting with his
Chicago staff in January? One thing is
certain: if that question wasn’t raised
in January, 1915, Smith was certainly asking it by March.
Shortly
after the trial began, any reassurances Sheaffer might have offered his Chicago
staff were compromised -- by none other than Smith’s former employer, L.E.
Waterman. On March 19, 1915, Edwin F.
Britten, Jr. filed a patent application for a different variation of the lever
filler, utilizing what we now refer to as a j-bar. Waterman introduced the new pens under the
designation “PSF” for “pocket safety filler” in the March, 1915 issue of the
company’s newsletter, The Pen Prophet.[xxi] Surviving examples of these early pens are
stamped on one side of the lever with Barnes’ 1903 patent date, indicating that
Waterman had purchased or licensed rights to use his invention, as well as
“Patent Applied for” on the other side.
Smith
was in a quandary: Sheaffer may or may
not survive. Even if Sheaffer did, he
would not enjoy dominance over the lever-filler, and Smith had already alienated
L.E. Waterman. To make matters worse,
Smith had apparently risen as high as he could in the Sheaffer
organization. B.T. Coulson,
Smith’s co-worker at the Sheaffer booth during the 1914 Chicago Jewelers’
Convention, was promoted to Vice President of the company, and Sheaffer also
appointed Coulson to manage Sheaffer’s newly established office in New
York. Coulson was now Smith’s eastern
counterpart for Sheaffer – but with a heftier title.
The stationers’ press is uncharacteristically silent about
Smith’s activities for most of 1915, with the exception of notations that he
made sales trips to St. Louis (coincidentally or not, this was B.T. Coulson’s
home) and Detroit; Sheaffer and his legal team might well have advised Smith
and his staff to curtail public speaking during the trial. But
towards the end of 1915, Smith reappears in a news report of an event which, in
retrospect, proved to be a moment which forever changed pen history.
On September 17, 1915, William Smith attended a dinner
reception for stationers en route to San Francisco for the Pan Pacific
Exposition (the 1915 Worlds’ Fair). None
of the guests were identified by their company associations, so it is unclear
whether Smith was attending the dinner as a Sheaffer representative (there is a
“Mr. and Mrs. Shaffer” on the guest list, which may refer to Walter Sheaffer, during
which time the press was still having trouble spelling his name
correctly). What is interesting about reports
of this September 17 dinner, however, is not who Smith was representing, but
with whom he was dining: Charles R.
Keeran.[xxii]
Figure 11. A fateful guest list for the September 17, 1915 Pan Pacific Exposition reception. |
This was likely the first time the veteran Smith and newcomer
Keeran met. At the time, Keeran’s offices
were in Bloomington and his pencils being manufactured by George W. Heath in
Newark, New Jersey; in his 1928 letter he said that his trip to the Pan
American Exposition was his most ambitious effort in marketing up to that point. Keeran
was actively recruiting salesmen on his San Francisco trip, and the crowd at
this reception was intimate enough that there can be no doubt that the
gregarious Smith and ambitious Keeran had ample time to become acquainted.
Did Smith share with Keeran any concerns he had about
Sheaffer’s future? Did Keeran try to
recruit Smith? There is no surviving
account of what the two talked about, but the events that transpired soon after
certainly suggest so. Two weeks after Keeran’s
dinner with Smith, on October 1, the Wahl Adding Machine Company would begin
manufacturing Keeran’s Ever Sharp pencils in his effort to keep up with the
demand. Two months after this dinner,
Keeran moved his Eversharp Pencil Company from Bloomington to the Lytton
Building in Chicago.[xxiii]
Three months after this dinner, the press reported that
Colonel Smith had abruptly resigned from Sheaffer after “a trip East.” “In order that his future plans may be given
the widest publicity possible in stationary circles, where he is so well known
throughout the country,” the article states, “Mr. Smith has authorized The
American Stationer to state that he is having better than usual returns from
his chicken ranch at Norwood Park this year, and as nice fresh eggs – the kind
manufactured at the Smith ranch – are selling at from six to eight cents
apiece, Bill is not worried about the future.”[xxiv]
The article is clearly tongue-in-cheek: Smith knew exactly what his next move was – it
was planned during his “trip East.” When
he made that move, Smith had it all planned out to be spectacular.
Figure 12. Just a couple weeks after this article was printed, Colonel Smith would no longer concern himself with the price of eggs. |
Part two of the series continues at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/12/wahl-sheaffer-and-race-for-boston-part_27.html.
[i]
Waterman had acquired control of Aikin Lambert & Co. by 1907, as detailed
by David Nishimura at http://www.vintagepensblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/waterman-and-aikin-lambert.html. However, Waterman kept Aikin Lambert’s
product lines completely separate from its own until the early 1920s.
[ii]
Parker introduced the “Lucky Lock” pencil in late 1922; Waterman first offered
matching Aikin Lambert pencils with its pens in the company’s 1919 catalog, but
did not develop its own pencil until 1923.
[iii]In
this article, the difference between “Eversharp” and “Ever Sharp” is
intentional and depends upon context.
When Charles Keeran incorporated his company as the “Eversharp Pencil
Company,” he was apparently unaware that there was another company at the time
marketing a different pencil called the “Eversharp” (the “Rapid Fire
Eversharp,” a multi-pointed pencil).
Keeran quickly renamed his pencil the “Ever Sharp,” but he didn’t change
the name of his company. By the time
Wahl began making Keeran’s pencils on its own account, the “other” Eversharp
was defunct, and Wahl contracted “Eversharp” back into one word.
[iv] The Publishers’ Weekly, May 20, 1905, at
page 1374.
[v] The Druggists’ Circular, January, 1907,
at page 70.
[vi] The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer, November
1, 1911, at page 370.
[viii]
Geyer’s Stationer, Vol. 36, number
1409, at page 6.
[ix] Geyer’s Stationer, Vol. 36, No. 1412, at
page 6.
[x] The American Stationer, February 14,
1914, at page 3.
[xi] The American Stationer, February 14,
1914, at page 6.
[xii] The American Stationer, August 29, 1914,
at page 5.
[xiii]
The American Stationer, October 24,
1914, at page 98.
[xiv] The American Stationer, January 16,
1915, at page 5.
[xv] The American Stationer, February 6,
1915, at page 6. The report is dated
February 1, and states that Sheaffer was in town “the first of the week.”
[xvi]
As the Court noted in Barrett v.
Sheaffer., 251 F.Rep. at 75, there was also the “Swedish Patent to
Johansson, No. 5,380, issued August 18, 1894.”
[xvii]
Congressional Serial Set Volume 22, page 107.
[xviii]
The patent was issued on August 15, 1916 as number 1,194,510.
[xix]
Craig’s patent wasn’t issued until October 9, 1917 as number 1,242,323.
[xx]Nishimura, David, “New Evidence for
the Early History of the Sheaffer Pen Company: Introduction & Notes [2001],
http://www.vintagepens.com/first_Sheaffers_intro.htm.
[xxi]
A copy of this issue is available in the PCA’s library: https://www.pencollectorsofamerica.com/component/docman/doc_download/346-waterman-l-e-company-magazine-the-pen-prophet-1915-march-8-pages?Itemid=
[xxii]
Walden’s Stationer and Printer,
October 11, 1915, at page 39.
[xxiii]
Typewriter Topics, November, 1915, at
page 178.
[xxiv]
The American Stationer, December 18,
1915, at page 30.
1 comment:
Just ran across this information and wanted people to know that David J. LaFrance was my grandfather and would love it if anyone could send me all this blog information to my email at mjmontgomery143@hotmail.com
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