Autopoints and Auto . . . openers?

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

I had one of those ridiculous moments at the Chicago Pen Show this year, when I was sitting in a ballroom filled with enough writing instruments to satisfy my every whim . . . when a notification came through on my phone, and I was instinctively sucked into checking out what was going on on eBay.  There, in the middle of the show, I placed an order from an online seller for this one:

Nice color, sharp looking yellow trim bands . . . and a goofy taper flattened out to work as an envelope opener, I suppose.  On the barrel there’s a nice, crisp Autopoint imprint in addition to the advertising for Klempner Brothers:

The pencil is built around the clipless version of a line of early 1930s Autopoints I wrote about some time ago, at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/02/shared-custody.html.   In fact, the same color configuration appears on one of the pencils pictured in that article:

This new addition makes for a nice pair alongside the Autopoint desk pencil I’ve also written about, at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-also-rans.html:

I bemoaned in that last article the absence of any Autopoint catalog references I knew about which documented the existence of a desk pencil, but the fact that both of these are clipless is as clear an indication as I need that these two are the real deal, and not just something pieced together.  Besides, I haven’t seen an envelope taper quite like this one anywhere else: