So Many Clues, So Few Answers

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I finally got to meet Jimmy Cockburn at the Baltimore show this year - I’ve quoted the veteran collector here at the blog, and it was nice to finally shake his hand.  It was also nice to pick something fun up from his table that I knew would make for a nice article here:

I know it’s an odd looking duck, and it looks at first like the top and bottom halves don’t go together – but this pencil is so much thinner than what you’d expect, and the pieces, neither of which I’ve seen separately before, thread together perfectly.  Besides, there’s plenty of other goofiness about this one that I’m convinced this is the way it was originally put together.

Let’s start with the top end.  The clip is marked “Pencil Knife,” and the top is stepped just enough to make me think there might have been some sort of cap on top:

 – but I don’t know why there would be, since it would really interfere with how the upper business end works:

Nice “stainless” marking on the blade, and two really good clues on the tang of the blade:

“Pencil Knife Trade Mark” on one side, and “Pat. Pend.” on the other.  I’ve got two great books that might be of assistance:   American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953 and American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2: 1911-1945.  Starting with the indication that a trademark might have been filed, I found this one:

The “Pencilnife Corporation” of New York registered trademark number 187,102 for a “pencil clip and knife combination,” claiming a date of first use of October 15, 1923.  Although I’d love to say this is it, I don’t believe it is.  First, there’s not two words and a “K” is missing in Pencilnife.  Second, it wasn’t used on a combination knife and pencil - only for a clip which doubled as a knife.  Third, the date of first use - 1923 - is too early for this thing given the celluloid, which would have been made in the late 1920s at the earliest.

Maybe there’s something in the patent history?

There’s a couple knife/pencil combinations patented in 1914 - too early for a “Pat. Pend.” imprint on something from the 1920s.  Same for number 1,444,155, patented in 1923.  There was one patented in 1930 - the date is about right, but number 1,767,948 isn’t anything like this one.

The fact that “Pat. Pend.” is stamped on the tang of the blade suggests whatever patent was applied for involved the blade itself - maybe it was a patent for the knife only rather than for its combination with a writing instrument, which would have been outside the scope of the book. Maybe the “pending” stamp was optimistic, and no patent was ever actually issued.

Maybe, I thought, it was for the pencil mechanism itself?   There is something else which is unusual about this one, at the writing end:

When you pull the nose away from the body, you can see that there is a metal bushing mounted at the end of the barrel - that’s something you don’t typically see.  Unfortunately, in an otherwise conventional screw drive pencil, I wouldn’t expect to see a patent for it, and there’s pages and pages of screw drive mechanical pencil patents listed in my book.

A search of newspapers for the term “Pencil Knife” turned up surprisingly few results – all of which turned up only advertisements for “Pen, Pencil, Kinfe” three-piece sets.

So, sadly, I’ve told you all I know about the Pencil Knife to date: so far, my best chance of telling you something more would be to find an example with a more descriptive barrel imprint;  maybe one with a patent number for a patent that was actually issued; or maybe one of the odd and distinctive features it has that might turn up on something else and suggest a connection which will unravel the history of it.

I’m as frustrated as you are!