Minty Morrisons

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Eric Magnuson recently offered me a few things out of a collection he had acquired, and this was one of the items I couldn’t resist:

Yes, it includes one of those pesky fountain pens, but I’m a bit of a Morrison closet collector, pens and all:

Both the pen and pencil have fully intact price bands.  The pencil is denominated the Number 8 “Automatic,” priced at $3.50:

As for the dinky ringtop, the Number 81 “self filling” carries a hefty $6.50 price tag, rivalling the price of a Parker “big red” Duofold at the time.  I think I recall the Morrison Pen Company being amongst those shady characters who deliberately marked up prices on their writing instruments, so the real price looked more attractive as a “discount.”  

The imprint on the pen is nice and clear:

As for the nib, it is tiny but nice:

This wasn’t my first rodeo buying a Morrison set – I’d forgotten that I had a second one:

I was convinced I had written about it before, but apparently I haven’t – probably because while both the pen an pencil are period correct Morrisons, the pen has wavy chasing while the pencil has groups of straight lines.  Morrison was second tier, but even so I would expect their sets to match:

The boxes are an exact match – “A Gift of Service,” they read on the lids:

Mismatch aside, I bought it for the paperwork it includes:

“Look for our trade mark,” the guarantee certificate invites.  Don’t mind if I do, I said, picking up American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953 – and there it is:

Louis Morrison, “a member of the firm” of the Morrison Fountain Pen Company, applied for registration of that ornate script logo on August 13, 1924, claiming to have first used it around June 1, 1919.  The text indicates that the firm consisted of Louis Morrison and Abe Morrison; trademark registration was granted as number 190,777 in very short order, on October 24, 1924.  

Another Morrison of note came my way in a lot which included several metal pencils.  I had to bid, because there was a paper label on it . . . I just needed to know what it said:

This one is a Morrison’s Number 11, with a stout $5.00 price tag:

It does go nicely with a gold filled example in my collection, in the same wavy chasing:

But . . . what would justify a $5.00 price tag for something like this?

The barrel indicates “sterling,” but the barrel also indicates that it is nothing of the sort – plated, at best.  Did I mention Morrison was second tier?