Lucifer's Last Act

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.

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Lucifer Most is a shadowy yet prolific inventor in the world of American mechanical pencils.  He invented the pencil marketed as the Autosharp by Diamond Point, and also marketed as the Sta-Sharp and then the ‘Salrite by Salz Brothers (Volume 4, pages 152-156).  From there, he went on to have a largely undocumented relationship with Mabie Todd and Sheaffer (Volume 4, pages 159-163).

Fast forward more than eighty years, when Janet and I wandered around an antique mall in Southeastern Ohio, where pickings were slim but expectations were commeasurately reduced.  One booth had a few baggies full of later advertising pencils . . . nothing special, but in a land of nothing specials I had little to do but amuse myself browsing through them.  In one of those bags, there was this one:

I thought it was a Sheaffer pearlie when it popped out of the bag, but there was something odd about it.  On closer examination, this is no Sheaffer:

The clip is marked “Ultimatic,” a name with which I wasn’t familiar, and better still was the imprint on the cap:

“Pat. Re-21,428 / D120,137 & Oths.”  I could hardly wait to get home and thumb through American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2, where both of these references were easy to located.  “Re-21,428" referred to patent number 2,177,839, reissued (that’s the “Re”) on April 16, 1940.  Lucifer J. Most originally applied for this patent on July 15, 1939 and it was granted on October 31, 1939:

On February 10, 1940, Most also applied for Design patent 120,137, which was issued on April 23, 1940:

Note that the Ultimatic has a triangular shaped barrel, just as shown in the design patent; in the utility patent, the drawings indicate that the pencil was designed to use triangular lead.  On closer examination, whaddaya know:

Triangular lead.  These were two of Most’s last patents - other than an eraser retainer and two patents for screw drive pencils, the Ultimatic represented the last stage in Most’s long and interesting career.