My Latest Conspiracy Theory

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My brain is all over the place, all of the time.  Once I’ve figured something out, I get bored and I’m on to the next challenge.  Yet twenty years later, I’m still collecting and writing about mechanical pencils . . . because I haven’t completely figured it all out yet, and I doubt that I ever will.

As was the case when this one showed up in an online auction:

The imprint, in really great gold gilt lettering, states this is a “United States Self Feeding” pencil:

And, there’s a patent date of August 30 1881:

The cap - or point protector - fits well and has the same spiral decoration seen on the front end of the pencil, leading me to believe it’s probably original to the pencil:

The top pushes in to advance two prongs, just like an Eagle Automatic from around the same era - but there’s a third metal leg on the side which doesn’t move with the mechanism:

A quick check of American Writing Instrument Patents 1799-1910 turned up patent number 249,336, which Frank B. Powers of Springfield, Massachusetts applied for on March 24, 1881:

Powers’ pencil was designed to use leads of a variety of different sizes, and that third metal leg is actually the spring which rides up and down inside the barrel, to hold leads of differing sizes against a step-by-step advance on the opposite side.  “The tip also acts as a point protector, being moveable on the sheath,” he writes – looks like that particular aspect of his patent didn’t work as well as anticipated.

Turning to the “Patents by Inventor” section of my book, it looks like no other writing instrument patents turned up under his name.  Nor is he listed as assignee of any other patents.  However, his “United States Self Feeding” pencil did make news; The American Stationer ran a short piece about the new pencil, manufactured by his Powers Paper Company, on July 13, 1882:

And then . . . nothing.  Powers Paper Company itself continued to tick along doing what it did best, with regular appearances at Stationers’ conventions and congressional hearings on various issues through the 1930s.  In fact, the latest reference I could find in which Powers was in operation was 1974.

But as for the company’s “United States Self Feeding” pencil, that one 1882 announcement in The American Stationer is it.  Perhaps the pencils just didn’t work very well (mine is pretty jammed up and has a separate point protector, which isn’t supposed to be necessary).  Perhaps the Eagle Pencil Company, which was making a very similar pencil, either put a stop to it or bought out the rights to it.  Perhaps Eagle was making these pencils all along for Powers Paper Company – it seems odd that a paper company would invest all that money into the equipment and machinery to make one specific pencil, then drop the whole thing.

One thing is certain - if Powers’ invention was truly effective in handling pencil leads of varying sizes, it would have been a game changer during a time when there was no “standard” size of leads.  Prior to the introduction of the Eversharp in 1913 and the more or less standardization of writing leads to .046 inches, pencil companies made their money both on the pencils they made as well as on the specific leads they either made or commissioned to fit them.  And of course, if those sizes were no longer available or became the victim of “planned obsolescence,”   they would sell you another pencil.

I’m no conspiracy theorist . . . ok, actually I am, and y’all already know that . . . but it seems to me that there were a lot of pencil companies with a vested interest in making sure Powers’ new pencil would not succeed or become commercially successful.  I think while Powers’ initial design may not have worked very well, the idea behind it was a dangerous one for the pencil industry – one which was quietly, promptly and amicably suppressed.