What They Looked Like and Why Most Don't

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

If you don't want the book but you enjoy the article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

A couple of years ago, Jimmie Cockburn sold me a pencil marked “Pencil Knife” on the clip, and I puttered around without success trying to find out who made it and when (see Volume 5, page 252).  I noted that the stepped top end suggested there might have been a cap on top:

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

Yes – and yes – I have learned, since a second, more complete example turned up in an online auction:

I still haven’t found anything out about who made these, but at least this new example does answer a few questions.  First, the earlier example I found does have a correct lower barrel – since the color was a mismatch, I had some quiet reservations about whether the two halves came from different pencils, but the jade example has the same mechanism, proportions and trim:

It also has a flat gold filled cap at the top, which confirms that a little something was missing from the one I found earlier:

It also shows why it is missing from the one I found earlier.  The cap itself is what limits the extent to which the knife opens – you can see where the metal on the cap has been bent where the back edge of the blade has pressed against it.  

If you actually used this as a knife, the pressure of the back side of the blade against that cap would pop it right off.  In fact, you can also see in this picture that someone has applied a dab of glue, maybe at the factory when it was installed, but more likely to reattach it after it came off.

The blade on this one shows more signs of use than the other, and the tang markings are more poorly stamped.  They appear to be almost identical to the other example I found, with one difference that might be telling.  I had noted in my earlier article that a trademark registration had been filed for the name “Pencilnife” by the Pencilnife Corporation, for a “pencil clip and knife combination”

However, I noted, the name on both the clip and the tang read “Pencil Knife,” spelled correctly and in two words – but it does say “Trademark”:

The tang markings on this new one are very poorly stamped, but you can just make out something:

The “K” is clearly missing, putting this “Pencil Nife” one step closer to the “Pencilnife.”   I’m still not convinced this is a product of the Pencilnife Corporation – the company filed a mark for a clip and knife combination, not for a pencil with a knife built into the barrel, and if it was trying to build brand recognition you would think they would be consistent in spelling its own name.

You would think.  But then again, not much about the Pencil Knife appears to have been well though out.