Must Be a PGF?

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.

At the Ohio Show last November, I purchased a large collection of pencils from Chicago collector Jim Ryan, who passed away last year.  These two were among them:

I pulled them aside as something that interested me; I couldn’t put my finger on what they were at first, but I knew they were something I didn’t want to let go.  The lines on the barrel are reminiscent of something made by Hicks:

I think that’s what threw me off – if these had the plain smooth barrels I was used to seeing, I like to think it wouldn’t have taken me so long to place what they were:

These are Esterbrook PS pencils, cataloged in 1934.  I wrote about them here in October, 2016 (https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-end-or-beginning.html) and mused about the similarities between the Esterbrook and the Selfeed, a repeating pencil that disappeared just before the PS appeared on the scene. 

I pulled the caps off to check the imprints, and there they were - as good as can be expected, since the imprints were put right where the cap rubs against the top of the barrel.  The lettering on the gold filled example fared a little better:

The sterling one would be tough to make out if you didn’t know what you were supposed to be seeing, but the “brook” part of the imprint is still legible:

A sterling example surfaced a couple of years ago on Fountain Pen Network in this ringed pattern – leading Brian Anderson to comment on the extreme rarity of the Esterbrook PS in general, compounded by the uniqueness of the ringed engine turning.  A gold filled example? I haven’t been able to find any references that they have been documented

In fact, think about it . . . the Esterbrook PS was named for the fact that it was a “Push” (repeating pencil), in sterling . . . PS.  So the only named by which we know to refer to these doesn’t fit what it is.  So what might this have been?  A PGF for Push in gold fill?

Or an SDPGF, for a super deluxe Push pencil in gold fill?