The Royal Family and an Unlikely Knight

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

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The Order of the Leadheads started as a private club for those who supported the publication of this blog in printed form.  I numbered the original run of Volume 1 -- just 50 copies -- and those who bought them became the original 50 Loyal Knights of the Order.  

The Order has proliferated in the years since, but  Knighthood has always been bestowed on the basis of buying books.  I suppose that means demonstrating the requisite exemplary service to justify admission to the Order has been . . . well, simple bribery. 

I paused to reconsider my admission standards a few months ago, when William Stryker made me a proposition.  There was this pen that he wanted, he told me, but it came as a set with a pesky matching pencil, and a price tag higher than mere mortals could stomach.  Perhaps, he thought, the person who taught him what he knew about the brand (through the articles I've posted here) might be willing to reduce his investment by taking the pencil off of his hands . . .

Yep - the object of his affection was a gorgeous Triad pen and pencil set.  I knew who owned it, and I’ve known pencil collectors have tried without success to get the seller to split the set.  William and I negotiated a bit about how much I would contribute for the privilege of owning the pencil; the set’s price reflected the even-more-than-usual outstanding color and condition of the pen.  While the pencil’s color was equally outstanding, that is not as unusual since the pencils don’t typically discolor over time (offgassing from the rubber ink sacs is what darkens celluloid).  

Negotiations were swift - yes, I contributed a bit more than I proposed, but my usual mantra doesn’t work.  “Pencils are like buses, you can catch the next one” isn’t helpful advice when it may be years before the next opportunity to hop aboard comes along.  When the William advised me the pencil was on its way, I told him I’d be setting up my lawn chair next to the mailbox.

“I see rain, a golf umbrella, and you smoking a cigar. I want a selfie of that included in the blog post,” he said.  I am a man of my word . . . at least, he got rain and a cigar anyway . . . the weather was so crappy on the day it arrived that no one in their right mind would have been stalking my mailbox, so I dispensed with the lawn chair.  As for the umbrella, it wouldn’t have been much use.

This Triad pencil is as pristine as you can imagine:

I don’t have anything to add concerning the history of the Triad, which rose from the ashes of the Rex Manufacturing Company (see in particular Volume 2, pages 72-73 and 100-106).  However, I'm overdue to include a better picture to illustrate the difference between two variations I’ve found.  Some have a flat top with ribs around the edge, while others have a cap with a top beveled to the shape of a triangle:

Countless people have been good to me over the years, but bringing a member of pencildom’s “Royal Family” of Triads to my doorstep? William now has the distinction of being the first Loyal Knight admitted to the Order for exemplary service not involving bribery!

Note:  if you are an established good egg and feel slighted, just drop me a line and I'll knight thee.

When I refer to Triads as a “Royal Family,” I mean there are good ones and bad ones, but even the bad ones have greater value than their peers solely by virtue of their name.  The pencil I received from William wasn’t the only green Triad that came my way recently, but this one is the Meghan, Duchess of Sussex of Triads:

If any other name were on the clip, this would be an unremarkable nose drive pencil that wouldn’t see the light of day outside of a junk box.  But it does carry the royal title and therefore, cost me more than I wanted to pay in an online auction:

And it doesn’t even have a triangular barrel.