Odd Ducks . . . Or Penguins

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Don Jacoby was a man after my own heart.  He was every bit as enthusiastic about the campy, the odd, and the just plain goofy as he was about things we “serious” collectors should be.  A few random things I found in his collection are worth a chuckle, but none of them merit an article all their own . . . so today I thought I’d put these odd ducks (or, borrowing from the “Penguins in the barnyard” reference, penguins) on parade today.

First up is a “trick” pencil – one that does something else in addition to writing:

The imprint on the side reads “Pen-N-Pencil Co. / New York, USA / Pat. Apl’d. For:”

It looks like a combination pen and pencil, but under the cap is something else entirely:

It’s a postal scale – hang a letter on it, and it will tell you how much your item weighs:

According to Wikipedia, the postage rates shown were in effect beginning July 6, 1932 and continued until raised by a penny on August 1, 1958; this looks to be on the earlier end, I should think.  The box adds only the location where it might have been sold - but I think given that the paperwork was still in the box, this might be how it was originally sold:

Ah, that paperwork . . . instructions for “The New Marvel Two-in-One Combination Postal Scale and Mechanical Pencil”: 

Early on here at the blog (Volume 1, page 91), I provided pictures of very similar paperwork from the Pen-N-Pencil Company, for “The New Marvel Two-in-One Save Your Eyes Combination Magnifier and Mechanical Pencil,” with a lucite magnifier on the end:

Both instruction sheets identify these as “‘Twinpoint’ Quality Products,’” and both indicate the same address, at 1 West 47th Street, New York.  Both also elicit a chuckle from me whenever I see them.

Far more serious, however, is this next one:

Serious, in that there are loads of pencils like these, with little floating (or actually and somewhat ironically, sunken) ships in the top end . . . and a person with an OCD collector gene would likely try to find examples with all the different ships.   This is a pool into which I have resisted dipping so much as a single toe, for fear that I might fall in.

The pencil is unmarked as to manufacturer, packed in a plain, unmarked box along with rudimentary instructions.  “R.M.S. ‘Queen Elizabeth’” emblazoned on the side and a tiny model of the ship in the top end:

The representation looks pretty good, with twin smokestacks and a pronounced bridge.  The Queen Elizabeth was launched on September 27, 1938 but the pencil was probably offered as a ship-board souvenir at some later time – given the outbreak of World War II, she served as a troop carrier during the conflict and didn’t enter her intended service as an Ocean Liner until October, 1946.  She was replaced by the QE2 in 1969.

As people prayed they didn’t end up underwater a ship in a pencil, this last pair also bears mention:

These little key ring pencil are readily identifiable as examples of “Lipic’s Streamlined Pencils,” from this store display featured here in Volume 1, page 230:

Each is marked with a reminder: “Jesus Never Fails”:

At least with a pencil chained to him, I’m sure he’d never fail to find it!