Thoughts Regarding a Few Connections

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I’ve had this one laying around for a long time, trying to make some sense out of it:

The celluloid has some great depth, and the clip is marked “Deluxe” in a nice, Old-English style script:

It is clearly from the same product lines as the Gold Bond.  Here it is alongside two examples, one in almost the same (but not quite as “deluxe”) color, and another sporting that same clip.  Note that the Deluxe has an extra trim band at the top, and all three have that black top piece with some nice detailing traditionally attributed to C.E. Barrett and National Pen Products:

However, the evidence I pieced together suggests that if these weren’t made by Rex, who clearly made earlier models of the Gold Bond, they might have been made by Sheaffer, which appears to have very quietly turned out Gold Bonds before later models were introduced which were clearly rebadged Eversharps and Watermans:

(For the whole scoop on that story, start with http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/08/maybe-big-three-out-of-four.html . . . from there, you can hop back to the first part of that series).

Now let’s turn the conversation up a notch:

Note that same black end with detailing at the top end?  These are essentially thinner versions of the Gold Bond, with different clips.  Two of these pencils – the longer ones – are ones you are probably familiar with.   They are imprinted “The Monogram Pen / Unbreakable / Sold Only at the Rexall Store.”  But that shorter one – like the Deluxe, with an extra trim ring at the top, says something entirely different:

The Joseph Lipic Pen Company of St. Louis.

I don’t know what all of this means.  Lipic clearly made some pens and pencils, but the company may also have acquired product for a short time from Sheaffer, Rex or whomever was turning out Monogram Pens.  As for Rexall, the United Drug Co. acquired product from DeWitt-LaFrance (remember the Signet?) as well as from Moore and Eagle, so it’s entirely possible to throw Rex or Sheaffer into the mix.

Chalk this article up as throwing out one piece to a giant puzzle and hoping someday I figure out at least which puzzle it’s supposed to fit in.