No Names of Significance

A “No Name” pen or pencil, in our collectors’ vernacular, is one which does not have a desirable manufacturer’s name. It does not mean that an item is entirely unmarked. “No Name of Significance” is more accurate.

I get a huge kick out of picking up these “No Name” brands. Sometimes one will turn out to be a subbrand of a well-known manufacturer. Other times there’s a neat back story about how or why they were made, or an interesting charlatan at work. 

Then there are those that just provide a good laugh. I don’t have much to say about the pencils in this article, other than I’ve enjoyed adding them to the museum.

This is a typical cheap, Welsh-style mechanism pencil, with “Old Fogey” on the clip.

If this next one is to be believed, I’m surprised I had not heard of it before:

There’s something strange going on at the nose - that mechanism had to be press fit in place from the front, since there’s no access from the rear. It either never made it all the way in or has worked itself back out. If it is indeed as “Famous” as advertised, you’d think I’d know the answer:

Here is the “Alwasrite,” with a cap reminiscent of the Eclipse-made Keene pencils, but a decidedly cheaper clip:

Is that a riff on “Always Right,” or was it “All Was Right” before this one came along?

This next one showed up in the online auctions with an opening bid of one cent and five dollars shipping.

I didn’t want to pay much, so I bid two cents . . . and I won for half that much, so I was $5.01 all in with shipping. I paid too much.

“Consolidated,” it says on the clip. Usually, people consolidate their strengths, but in this case, I think every bad design idea was consolidated into one pencil. Maybe the notion was to get all the bad ideas off the market in one fell swoop, from the crappy barrel material, cheap wartime plastic clip (or perhaps, one left over after the war), and lousy trim plating. 

Next up is a cigar figural novelty pencil. Louis F. Dow made these in large numbers, but they were made of wood; this one is plastic:

I don’t have any evidence to suggest that Dow was behind this one, but whoever was shared Louis’ campy sense of humor. This is the “El Pencillo”:

I’ve found two examples of this next “No Name,” although there are enough differences between the two that I can’t confirm the same characters were behind both of them:

Maybe the pens had a “Reservoir,” but the pencils at least had the name on the clip:

I have a couple clues to suggest these were made by Eclipse – nothing definitive, but suggestive. The same clips were used on some Eclipse pencils. 

And one example in my collection uses a cursive script that is very similar to one of the Reservoirs.

I also have a pretty good idea who might have been responsible for the “Supreme”:

I have two of these - the model that was already in my collection was missing that mysterious “B” in a circle above the name, and it has a tag from its previous owner indicating he (or she) had found it at a flea market in Rockville, Maryland in 1981. Good collector’s history there.

That wild green and white combination strongly resembles an example of the Nassau, which I believe was made by David Kahn (maker of the Wearever line) for that rascal James Kelley (see “All the King’s Horsemen Part 1, posted July 26, 2021: Volume 7, page 290). Kelley’s brands included letters within a circle above the name like this, and perhaps “B” is a throwback to the “Banker” line Kelley sold.  The celluloid also matches a Gordon that turned up recently.

Next in this parade of unknowns is the “Tokany”:

I have a notion about the source of this one, even if the meaning of the name eludes me. My example bears a striking resemblance to pencils marked “Monroe” (not the Eclipse ‘uberbrand,’ but the other one). It even has a knife inside like most Monroe pencils along these lines:

Last for today is the large red example in this next image. I think I shot it next to that great oversized Autopoint only because they were in the same lot, because there’s no connection between the two:

“York” is the name on the clip:

That is quite the English-sounding name, and I do believe this one was made in England. Inside, the mechanics are identical to the British “Lifelong” pencil:

Still, it is possible this is an Englishman’s American cousin . . . nowhere is this example marked as to country of origin:

Now that I have thrown out a bunch of new names on the backs of digital milk cartons, I am hoping this might yield additional evidence from the peanut gallery. I am confident that I’ll be circling back around to one or more of these as more information becomes available – maybe in a couple weeks, maybe in ten years . . .