Of Course Ren Had This One

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Although normally I don’t hunt English pencils, in this case I had to bite:

It was on Reinaldo Matthews-Danzer’s table - you know him as “Ren,” the pipe-smoking, Aussie hat-wearing guy who provides overnight security at several of the eastern shows.

Of course my pipe-smoking friend had this.  It’s a “Wyvern Smoker’s Pencil” with an English patent number of 472,380:

Smoker’s pencils are great “trick” pencils.  Pull the top on this one, and there’s your Smoker’s tool:

Although it looks more adept as a weapon, this spike is for punching a cigar to increase airflow and improve the “draw” of a cigar that’s wrapped too tightly. 

British patents aren’t as easy to find as their American counterparts, but in this case, I was able to locate the patent online (having the number certainly helped).   It was applied for by Alec Finburgh and David Finburgh, trading as the Wyvern Fountain Pen Company, on March 2, 1937, and was granted on September 22, 1937, for a pencil having on board either a pipe cleaner or a “pricker”:

Too bad English patents don’t include pictures!