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The Catalogue.
Most recently, I found an example of an Eclipse which lacked the “Never Dull” name, which looked a lot more like Rex-marked pencil and made the conclusion that much more certain (see https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/never-dull-in-more-ways-than-one.html). In recent weeks, two finds have turned up which remove any doubt that the Eclipse Never Dull was in fact made by Rex. The first was this one, which turned up at the Baltimore Show:
Scott Jones was actually the guy that turned it up. He’s a reader of my blog as well as an artist who uses pencils in his drawing, and he stopped by my table to show this one to me. I offered to buy it or trade him something else for it, and after he thought about it overnight, he came back the next day and we negotiated a trade that made both of us happy.
Here’s the imprint:
This is the first time I’ve been able to find a pencil proving that the Rex Manufacturing Company actually used the Never-Dull name. But there’s another possibility: it could be that Rex, like Eclipse and Albert Howard, had some third party manufacture these pencils for the company rather than actually making the pencils themselves. That question, I believe was answered by this one:
This one is a dead ringer for one of my Eclipse Never-Dull pencils:
But this one has an imprint which is without question that of a manufacturer:
That settles it. There’s no more speculation needed; Rex made the Eclipse Never-Dull. That is my final answer.
Almost . . .
There’s one more thing I don’t know. I don’t know whether Rex made these pencils for the Eclipse Fountain Pen & Pencil Corporation, or whether Rex initially used the name Eclipse as one of its own house brand names.
There’s a good clue in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, since it includes the trademark registration for Eclipse:
The Eclipse Fountain Pen and Pencil Corporation claimed to first use the name in block letters in May, 1919 – a date which fits nicely into this timeline, but note that the application was filed to protect the name until ten years later, in 1929.
It would be nice if there were a trademark registration for either the Rex or Rex-hold marks showing that either of these names were used by Rex at the same time; unfortunately, in the course of researching federal trademarks I never found one. Filing for a federal trademark is not mandatory, of course, and many companies used marks that were protected either under state law, or under the common law. Many of these were gathered together in a publication put out by the Jewelers’ Circular titled Trade-marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades, and the 1922 edition lists the Rex-hold mark:
Eclipse may or may not have offered pencils along with the company’s pens right from the outset in 1919, and the first indications of the “Never Dull” pencil being on the market come in 1921. With the Rex-hold mark being reported in 1922, I think it’s clear both marks were in use at the same time.
Most recently, I found an example of an Eclipse which lacked the “Never Dull” name, which looked a lot more like Rex-marked pencil and made the conclusion that much more certain (see https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/never-dull-in-more-ways-than-one.html). In recent weeks, two finds have turned up which remove any doubt that the Eclipse Never Dull was in fact made by Rex. The first was this one, which turned up at the Baltimore Show:
Scott Jones was actually the guy that turned it up. He’s a reader of my blog as well as an artist who uses pencils in his drawing, and he stopped by my table to show this one to me. I offered to buy it or trade him something else for it, and after he thought about it overnight, he came back the next day and we negotiated a trade that made both of us happy.
Here’s the imprint:
This is the first time I’ve been able to find a pencil proving that the Rex Manufacturing Company actually used the Never-Dull name. But there’s another possibility: it could be that Rex, like Eclipse and Albert Howard, had some third party manufacture these pencils for the company rather than actually making the pencils themselves. That question, I believe was answered by this one:
This one is a dead ringer for one of my Eclipse Never-Dull pencils:
But this one has an imprint which is without question that of a manufacturer:
That settles it. There’s no more speculation needed; Rex made the Eclipse Never-Dull. That is my final answer.
Almost . . .
There’s one more thing I don’t know. I don’t know whether Rex made these pencils for the Eclipse Fountain Pen & Pencil Corporation, or whether Rex initially used the name Eclipse as one of its own house brand names.
There’s a good clue in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, since it includes the trademark registration for Eclipse:
The Eclipse Fountain Pen and Pencil Corporation claimed to first use the name in block letters in May, 1919 – a date which fits nicely into this timeline, but note that the application was filed to protect the name until ten years later, in 1929.
It would be nice if there were a trademark registration for either the Rex or Rex-hold marks showing that either of these names were used by Rex at the same time; unfortunately, in the course of researching federal trademarks I never found one. Filing for a federal trademark is not mandatory, of course, and many companies used marks that were protected either under state law, or under the common law. Many of these were gathered together in a publication put out by the Jewelers’ Circular titled Trade-marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades, and the 1922 edition lists the Rex-hold mark:
Eclipse may or may not have offered pencils along with the company’s pens right from the outset in 1919, and the first indications of the “Never Dull” pencil being on the market come in 1921. With the Rex-hold mark being reported in 1922, I think it’s clear both marks were in use at the same time.
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