A Few Hickses

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’ve finally gotten around to photographing and putting away a few pencils made by W.S. Hicks. For starters, there’s these three:

These are marked only with a patent date of March 21, 1871, the larger two on the extender:

and the smaller one, in tiny lettering around the nose cone:

American Writing Instrument Patents 1799-1910 makes short work of finding this patent.  The date refers to patent number 112,917, issued to William S. Hicks:

These four were marked with the Hicks name:

I don’t remember where the top or bottom examples came from, but the middle two came from a collection I purchased from Alan Hirsch.  He has a good eye for nice metal wrok:

Last is this one, which came from someone who approached me online with her father’s collection:

This one is marked “Hicks Pat. Dec. 24, 1867":

American Writing Instrument Patents 1799-1910 comes to thte rescue again, with a listing for patent number 72,684, issued to Richard H. Ryne and assigned to William S. Hicks:

Patents are important for two reasons: the March 21, 1871 patent gives us a historical connection between an otherwise unidentifiable pencil and its maker.  The December 24, 1867 patent provided me with something else: the confidence to know that I could pull on the tip of that pencil, so hard that if I didn’t know what was going on inside I’d think I was going to break it . . .

and the nose would come out to reveal a reversible dip pen nib holder.  Alas, no nib with this one.

Red hard rubber Victorians are much harder to find than the black ones.  However, both red and black are easy to find in comparison with what I’ve got to show you tomorrow . . .