Geometric Ancestor?

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One of my earliest blog entries here, from back in the fall of 2011, was about the Self Sharpening Pencil Company and Newton Crane’s bizarre, Jules Verne-looking triangular pencils, patented by Newton Crane of Boston, Massachusetts in 1912:

That article (https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2011/11/self-sharpening-pencil-co.html) contained images which were wiped out by Google, but I was able to find them on an old hard drive.  Here’s the salesman’s case marked “Self Sharpening Pencil Co.” containing several examples of Crane’s pencils:

Later in the year, another larger example of the Self Sharpening Pencil turned up, making three sizes (https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2012/10/cranes-manlier-side.html).  The smallest pencils used ordinary round lead, while the larger ones were equipped to use triangular leads, but I bemoaned the fact that neither had any lead remaining in them.

Then along came Michael Little, who turned up something . . . special . . . which he was kind enough to part with:

The silk-lined box has the same script for “Self Sharpening Pencils,” but indicates that the pencil was called the “Cranesharp” after its inventor:

“‘Like My Bill’ Triangular Always Sharp,” says the bird – or crane, actually . . .

The “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” at the foot of the crane is an indication that a trademark was filed, and I do include this one in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953:

William M.P. Bowen, as Treasurer and Secretary of the Self Sharpening Pencil Company, applied for trademark number 90,248 on October 16, 1912, promptly after the mark of the crane was first used on October 1, 1912.  William Manuel Perez Bowen (1864-1955), son of Amos Miller Bowen and Caroline Mary (Perez) Bowen. William M.P. Bowen was an 1884 Brown graduate who served both as a State Representative and a state Senator in the Rhode Island General Assembly, according to his obituary (he passed away on April 9, 1955). 

The Self Sharpening Pencil Company also registered a label incorporating the “Cranesharp” name – a lesser used vehicle at the Patent Office - on October 18:

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a copy of the label as it was registered – although I’m sure it matches what is found inside the lid of this box. 

The only reference I could find to the pencils being marketed, however, was in this ambiguous piece, which appeared in a couple of Pennsylvania newspapers in 1916.  If they were still marketed as the “Cranesharp” by that time, there’s no indication of it:

Now for a closer look at the pencils! 

All are the same size with the exception of the gold ones on the end, one of which has a utility-style exposed eraser:

All of them bear Crane’s patent date of September 17, 1912:

The paint on these is remarkably well preserved for being more than a century old:

And yes, Virginia, each of them is still fitted with its original, factory sharpened lead . . .

. . . triangular lead . . .

. . . and there’s three little triangular tubes which contain spare triangular leads . . .

. . . stamped with a legend which brings me to the truly amazing part of this story:

Not “Patent 1,038,859,” but “Self Sharpening Pencil Co. / Lic’d Under U.S.S. Patent 1,038,859.”  That tells us more than that they got the patent number wrong (it was 1,038,857 – number 1,038,859 was for a fire extinguisher).  It hints that these pencils were not simply Newton Crane’s folly, but that there was more to the story.

There is.

In that first article I wrote here, I commented that the Self Sharpening Pencil was ahead of its time . . . “ triangular, to better fit the hand (about 20 years before the introduction of the Triad).”  In fact, the Triad was a product of the Tri-Pen Company which succeeded the Rex Manufacturing Company of Rhode Island, which had been formed in 1911 and established itself in the jewelry business at 14 Blount Street, Providence:

And guess what else was located at 14 Blount Street, according to the 1915 Providence House Directory:

That’s right.  The Self Sharpening Pencil Company was turning out triangular pencils, made “under license,” and under the same roof as the Rex Manufacturing Company, which would just a few years later patent and make pencils of its own design . . . and which, in 1929, would disappear – likely over a patent infringement case brought by Parker – to be replaced by Tri-Pen, makers of Triad triangular pens and pencils.

That can’t be a coincidence.