The Holland Tulip

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.

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I’m a proud Ohioan, so John Holland, who hailed from Cincinnati, is always near and dear to my heart.  In recent months, I’ve come across two Holland pencils that I’ve waited a long time to find:

Each of these has something above the clip . . . something not quite a dot . . .

It almost looks like it’s glued on rather than set into the plastic, doesn’t it?  I’ve seen the mark used on earlier flattop pens, but not on the earlier Holland Rex-made flattop pencils.

Thanks to the research I put into American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, I can tell you a little bit more about that mark:

John A. Holland, as secretary/treasurer for The John Holland Gold Pen Company, 127 East Fourth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, claimed to use this mark since April 30, 1926.

In my book, I’ve indexed marks alphabetically, when they include words, letters or numbers, and in a separate section by description if it’s only a figure.  In this case, I indexed this mark under “tulip.”

Why?  Holland . . . tulips . . . think about it.