More Than a Buck These Days

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This Eversharp Dollar Pencil has appreciated over the last 90 years:

This particular model was made in 1930 or 1931, according to the timeline I’ve assembled (the full story is in Volume 4, page 3).  I know that because earlier models were equipped with the improved (post-1924) Keeran mechanism.  This one sports the same mechanism found on the Equipoised, and later models – like the ones shown in the 1932 catalog – were streamlined.

But . . . unlike all the other ones I have found which hawk Eversharp’s “Red Top” leads, this one is in jade.  Pedestrian, perhaps, but more interesting than any other material on which I’ve found this imprint:

Note there were three variations:   “ Eversharp Red Top Leads,” “Use Eversharp Red Top Leads,” and “Always Use Eversharp Red Top Leads.”  The “always” variation is found on the earliest; apparently as time went one, using them every so often was good enough.

There was another reason to bite on this one.  It was visible in the auction pictures, crammed in the bottom of the box:

I’ve just got to know what every piece of paper says.  When I flattened this one out, it was one I haven’t seen before . . . Red Top leads, in those rectangular metal containers, advertised on the other side of paperwork detailing Eversharp’s “Personal Point” pens with screw-in nib units, predating the introduction of the Doric in 1931; so 1930, I’m suspecting for this one, if the paperwork has been riding alongside this pencil for the last 90 years.

Then, just as I was ready to call it a day for this article, another Eversharp Dollar Pencil showed up in an auction over in England – I just had to bite:

The coral color is spectacular, but that isn’t what’s new.  Here it is alongside the ones you usually see in this color:

The Dollar Pencil series, as documented in my previous article, went through a linear series of developments.  First, the clip was changed from a simple z-clip to that bolted-on one . . . then, the mechanism inside was switched from the venerable Keeran mechanism (as improved in 1924) to the Equipoised mechanism. 

I haven’t found the transitional model in coral yet, with the old mechanism and the new clip.  But the coral was a welcome addition to the other Equipoised-mechanism examples I’ve found:

Eversharp is an infinity pool.  Swim as hard as I can, I still haven’t reached the opposite side.