On The Subject of Bowling

This article has been included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 7, now available here.

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My friend Ibrahim Abou-Saad tipped off Jim Stauffer and me that there was a red Tweeten bowling score pencil, lurking in the weeds amongst a bunch of junkers in an online auction.  Jim and I agreed that I would give chase -

Ibrahim made intriguing comments on this pencil.  He identified it as a Tweeten – which wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination – but then he said it was an example of Tweeten’s 1958 patent, and not the more common 1942 patent pencil.  He also added that he hadn’t seen one before in red.  I could see what he meant from the pictures, because this Tweeten looked decidedly different from the red example I had:

The Tweetens I am used to seeing generally have the name imprinted on the barrel, with a knurled cap:

This one, however, has vertical lines on the cap, and the only markings are on the slip-on accommodation clip:

When I last visited the Tweeten at the end of Volume 6 (page 236, an article which, for other reasons, is one which I may find myself trying to top for the rest of my life), I had mentioned the connections between Tweeten and the “Taylor Made Pencil Co.” of South Bend, Indiana.  The new addition is identical, other than color and the name on the clip, to my Taylor Made:

On the earlier models, Oscar Tweeten’s 1942 patent number, 2,285,630 is imprinted near the nose.

But . . . 1958?  That is outside the scope of my patent books.  Ibrahim was right, and linking the words “Tweeten” “Patent” and “Pencil” in a search will lead you right to patent number 2,827,018.  Oscar Henry Tweeten and William H. Sheffer were the co-inventors, and their application was filed on January 27, 1956.  It was granted on March 18, 1958:

The 1958 Tweeten patent was one that is relatively easy to find, since Tweeten’s name is on it.  If Sheffer had prosecuted it alone, however, that would have been a difficult nut to crack, without a book like American Writing Instrument Patents Vol. 2: 1911-1945.  Whatever would one do, in those circumstances, without a third installment in the series?