The Gift That Keeps On Giving

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One of my favorite pieces that came along with Don Jacoby’s collection was this one:

It’s a WASP pencil (WASP, for those who don’t know, is an acronym for W.A. Sheaffer Pen), and I’ve not seen one in this series in gray with chrome trim - and the trim on this one is much nicer than you’ll usually find:

The imprint on the reverse reads simply “WASP Pen Company, Inc. / Ft. Madison, IA USA”:

A few weeks ago I mentioned Roger Wooten’s excellent article in The Pennant, in which he outlines the history of the Universal Pen Company, organized by Sheaffer as a Delaware Corporation on July 23, 1928.  According to Roger, Universal Pen Company operated under that name, making pens and pencils marked “Univer,” until November 29, 1933, when the company formally changed its name to the “Vacuum-Fil” pen company.  Roger states that the company’s name was changed to The WASP Pen Company on May 29, 1936.

I can narrow down a production date for this pencil even more.  There were two closely related series of these pencils:

The other series is slightly shorter, and it included marbled plastics.  Clips are relocated higher on the barrel, and the stylized W is dropped:

There’s one other difference: the imprint adds the word “Crispline” on all the examples from this later series:

The stylized W clips were earlier; they showed up on the WASP version of the Sheaffer working togs pencil in the “Clipper” line in advertisements from 1939 (these WASP working togs pencils were covered well in Volume 4, page 143).  

Incidentally, the full advertisement is also shown in Volume 4, in the course of discussing “circuit board” WASPs in the article beginning on page 342.  Earlier versions of that same pencil sport the clips used on pencils marked Vacuum-fil, so the transition to that clip likely occurred sometime in 1938 or 1939:

My Crispline pencils, with their non-W clips, accompanied WASP “Addipoint” pens.  Jim Mamoulides did an outstanding writeup on Addipoint pens over at Penhero.com (the direct link is https://www.penhero.com/PenGallery/Sheaffer/SheafferWaspAddipoint.htm).  With Jim’s permission, here’s a shot he took of one in brown marble, showing the Addipoint imprint:

So how does the timeline fit together?  I answered that question – along with more than 2,000 other questions – in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953.  Both the Addipoint and Crispline trademarks are included in the book.  Sheaffer registered the Addipoint name as number 359,075; in the application for registration, James Low indicated that the WASP Pen Co., Inc. began using the name on February 21, 1938.  Since the application was filed so quickly, on March 7, 1938, we can assume that specific date is spot on:

All of the Addipoint pens I found during my search sported these non-W clips.  Does that mean they were accompanied exclusively by pencils marked “Crispline?”  Not necessarily:

WASP’s application to register the Crispline name was also filed very shortly after the company first claimed to use it: “for fountain pens since March 27, 1940; for pencils since March 25, 1940; and for ensembles consisting of a pen and a pencil, since March 25, 1940.” 

These trademarks narrow the window, but also leave open some questions.  What did Addipoint pens look like between February 21, 1938 and March 25, 1940?  Were they the W-clip pens, and did the pencils that came with them sport the W-clip?  When was the W-clip introduced on models other than the working togs pencils?

Documentation is sparse, and when more information surfaces, with luck the answers will float to the surface.