Charles A. Keene

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I wasn’t planning on writing about Charles A. Keene, but one online score has me revisiting the subject.   Marked “Charles A. Keene / 180 Broadway,” this one twists in the middle to advance a very Victorian-looking mechanism:

Keene is best known for the large flattop pens and pencils made by Eclipse (the pen was called the “Big Bill” – see Volume 2, page 50).  I’ve also run across thin-barreled metal pencils in sheaths (Volume 4, page 213).  Here’s all of them together:

Something bothered me about this latest find, because it looked so much older than the others.  This led me to check around to see what I could find about Keene: sources I’ve read only refer to him dismissively as a “New York jeweler,” but there was much more to the man and his business.

Other jewelers hated him.

Keene was born in 1866.  According to his own advertisements, he claimed to have founded his jewelers business in 1881, but that date must have been when he first went into apprenticeship; this advertisement, which appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on November 27, 1898, states that he had gone into business 14 years earlier – in 1884 – “after serving for years under the leading masters of my profession”:

Keene started his career, not in New York, but in Boston, with what appears to have been a tempestuous family relationship.  On December 17, 1887, the Boston Globe reported that a 21-year-old Keene had been arrested and jailed for “an assault upon his wife’s mother”:

What became of the matter was not reported, so far as I can tell, nor do I know whether the young man’s marriage withstood the incident.   If the charges weren’t dropped, young Charles did not serve a significant sentence:  “KEENE, the Jeweller” began advertising in the Globe in early 1889, at 1301 Washington Street, Boston.  This advertisement is from January 27, 1889:

1301 Washington Street was the former address of Keith & Company, a jewelry firm.  It is possible this is where Keene apprenticed (advertisement from the July 22, 1882 edition of the Globe):

“Keene Optical Company” also advertised its services at 1301 Washington Street, Boston.  This is from the Globe on October 29, 1889:

Keene suffered a violent robbery on January 8, 1890, when theives barred the door, smashed out the front windows and ran off with all the stock they could carry.  The robbery made national news – this account appeared in the Buffalo Evening News on January 8, 1890:

The robbery may not have been random, because Keene wasn’t making any friends within the trade.  On November 1, 1891, the Boston Globe reported that other Boston jewellers were complaining bitterly that Keene was selling watches below wholesale cost:

Keene had a flair for the dramatic, and undeterred by any grumblings from his competitors, he became a prolific advertiser of cut-rate jewelry.  In the Globe on December 18, 1892, he announced “Keene’s Big Undertaking,” his liquidation of a Boston jobber’s stock:

Around 1898, Keene established shop in New York, at 140 Fulton.  He shows up in the 1898 Trow’s directory at that location:

The move might have overextended him: on Christmas Day, 1898, he announced he was “compelled” to sell off a large stock of watches at “Keene’s Watch Store.”

During this time, he continued to maintain locations in both New York and Boston, as this advertisement in the October 14, 1900 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle indicates:

On April 11, 1902, Keene’s Watch Store ran a large advertisement in The New York Times for a clearance sale, “‘Clearing up clean’ prior to ‘Removal’ to our handsome new store, 180 Broadway.”

There was a secret to Keene’s success, and it wasn’t just buying in quantity.  At the time, the United States aggressively protected domestic manufacturers through tariffs – taxes on imported goods.  While these tariffs allowed manufacturers to charge higher prices at home, frequently companies would “dump” excess product in foreign markets to make it less economical for foreign companies to make competing products, even for consumption on their own turf.

Charles A. Keene figured out that he could travel abroad, buy goods that were dumped there by American companies, and reimport them back into the United States.  Even after he paid the tariffs due, he was able to sell the reimported goods for far less than the wholesale prices U.S. companies charged dealers for goods that were made and sold here.

Keene's success made him a lot of enemies - particularly in the “Watch Trust,” a group of manufacturers dedicated to maintaining prices through ensuring that American watches would not be sold for less than a price they considered reasonable.  On April 4, 1907, Keene, as President of the Independent Watch Dealers’ Association, met with the Assistant U.S. Attorney General to discuss the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Watch Trust’s activities, as reported in the May 4, 1907 edition of The Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Sentinel:

In 1911, the Waltham Watch Company had enough with Keene and sued him on a theory that due to Waltham’s patents, the watch company could prohibit Keene from selling its patented watches for less than Waltham sold the same products to its dealers.  The filing of the lawsuit was reported in The New York Times on April 8, 1911:

Keene won the case, but it wasn’t until 1914 before the United States Supreme Court denied Waltham’s appeals.  At almost exactly the same time, curious notices start appearing in Keene’s advertising: some unscrupulous jeweler set up shop next door to Keene and was apparently trying to undermine Keene’s business.  This notice was in the December 30, 1914 issue of the New York Evening World:

The only advertisements I can find for writing instrument offered by Keene were around this time, as well.  On April 16, 1914, the New York Evening World ran this advertisement for gold filled pencils:

A few months later, beginning in October, 1914, Keene advertised clutch pencils.  This advertisement, in the December 16, 1914 edition of the Evening World, states that Keene would offer ten thousand gold filled and sterling clutch pencils:

He also offered pens, much earlier than the Keene pens made by Eclipse.  The following advertisement for “Keene’s Self Filler Safety Fountain Pens” appeared in The Kingston (New York) Daily Freeman on August 25, 1916:

In 1922, Keene faced criminal charges for passing off a belt buckle as sterling, when the attachment was made of baser metal.  He was convicted, but the judge suspended his sentence after finding that Keene did not intend to deceive; Keene explained that the attachment could not be made of softer sterling because it would not be strong enough.  This was reported in the Evening World on June 23, 1922.

The company remained in business until 1932, when an auctioneer was retained to sell Keene’s remaining stock upon his retirement, as advertised in the New York Daily News on March 16, 1932:

Charles A. Keene died on July 26, 1947, back in the Boston area where his career started.