The Graf Bader's Ballast Box

I had to check with those who were involved in this story to be sure everyone thought it was as funny and worth retelling as I did. They do.

A few weeks before the Chicago Show, I had purchased a huge collection of . . . er . . . high quality ballpoints and pencils from the estate of a collector in Kansas. I didn’t make the trip out west, though. Dan Schenkein lives in Kansas, and he was my boots on the ground. I sent Dan some money to spend, and spend it wisely  he did - eleven large priority mail boxes landed on my doorstep packed to the brim with stuff. For a couple weeks, you couldn’t see our kitchen table while I sorted through everything.

After I had neatly packaged everything by brand and taken what I wanted for my collection, I texted Rob Bader to see if he wanted to buy everything else. “Should I bring a trailer?” he asked. I told him he should bring a Zeppelin. A grand purchase warrants a grand entrance, I said. 

That Thursday morning in Chicago, Rob docked his Zeppelin on the roof of the hotel and came down to the ballroom, where we did our thing – he took piles and piles of stuff, and I took a few pieces of paper from him.  

This year’s Chicago show was the busiest I can recall – so much so that I was pinned down at my display by a frenzied crowd of pencil folk for almost the entire weekend. I didn’t have much time to get around the room, but during one of my brief excursions around the room, I saw that Rob had a box full of big, colorful flattop pens on his table, dumped unceremoniously out on the table in true Baderesque fashion.

I really wanted to do a deep dive into that pile, but it was causing quite a stir; I couldn’t get close enough to Rob’s table to see anything with the frenzy of buyers, and I didn’t have time to wait. By the time things quieted down, Rob had said his typical Irish goodbye and the Graf Bader turned south and floated away before I had the chance to see what I was missing.

Raleigh (the Triangle Pen Show) came a few weeks later, and Rob was back with what was left of that big, beautiful box spilled out in a smaller but still enticing pile awaiting a thorough pillaging. This time it was quiet enough that I could spend some quality time seeing what there was to see. Most of it was parts only – caps and barrels without nibs, sections or feeds, but this little guy leaped out of the pile and into my hands:

Rob and I share the same sickness that keeps us perpetually buried in pens and pencils. The reasonable and normal thing to do when you find something you like in a pile of stuff is to ask for a price on that one item. Rob and I are neither reasonable nor normal: when we find one thing we like in a whole mess of stuff, we assume there’s got to be a whole bunch more good stuff in there and we want to know how much to buy it all.

At least Janet knew I was wired that way when she married me.

Usually, Rob and I don’t use money in our transactions. When I find things on his table, he’ll tell me to take it with me and he’ll swing by later to pick out some things to take in trade. This time, however, he was fully laden with the things I sold to him in Chicago, and he wanted to lighten the load a bit and get back some of those pieces of paper he had given me the previous month.

How much would I offer? I threw out a number – five hundred bucks. You have to start somewhere, I figured. The Graf Bader must have been sagging pretty low at that moment – done, he said. Everything was dumped back into the box, and back I went to my own table. I hadn’t set anything out yet, so I spent the first couple hours sorting through everything to see what I wanted to keep and what I might leave out on the table during the rest of the show.

I pulled a few things out of no real significance - there were quite a few large Waterson pens in there, just caps and barrels, but I’ve got a soft spot for that rascal Mr. Kelly (see “The Banker and the Specialty King” on June 25, 2021: Volume 7, page 285). There were a few other odds and ends I kept, but most of it I laid right back out on the table.

In my mind, I got my money’s worth just out of the couple enjoyable hours I spent going through a fresh box of stuff. As for the initial object of my affection, it remained the first thing I had pulled out of that box. I didn’t look at it very close, but I knew from the clip it was made by DeWitt-LaFrance, one of my pet obsessions around the museum, and on closer examination it had an imprint even better than I had hoped:

DeLaCo was one of DeWitt-LaFrance’s earliest trade names: I know from the pencils, all of which are marked Patent Pending – the ubiquitous Superite pencils came later, when the imprints were changed to “Pat.” on both the barrels and clips. As with nearly everything else in that box, it was missing a few parts – there was no nib and the top piece had gone missing.

I knew that these parts were missing when I bought the box, but I didn’t think it was a big deal - Superite nibs are still relatively easy to find, and I figured any old generic black plug would finish it nicely. On that second point, I was wrong. On closer examination, the plug on the barrel end isn’t black – it’s a dark olive green with black zebra stripes.

That’s a tall order to find a correct replacement, although hope is always springing eternal that the peanut gallery might help me out with finding that part some day. I still thought I got my money’s worth. 

I didn’t know how right I was.

I had an appointment at the Raleigh show to meet Robert Speerbrecher (“Speerbob,” for those who have seen his listings on eBay). Bob was running low on inventory, so I had told him the Graf Leadhead would be landing in Raleigh with a few of my own ballast boxes and we could help each other out. Bob came looking for pencils, but when he saw a few rows of big, colorful flattop fountain pen parts, his focus shifted immediately. 

Bob asked what I wanted for the pens, and I invited him to make me an offer for what he wanted. He offered an amount per piece for all of the flattops, and that number was low – at that per unit price there was plenty of money to be made, if like Bob you have the parts needed to make complete pens out of them. For a moment I thought about whether I might do the same thing, but I don’t have a stock of spare fountain pen parts and heck . . . there were so many of them that when Bob’s unit price was multiplied by the sheer number of them, I would triple my money on what I paid for the entire box. The Graf Leadhead jettisoned that box of ballast in exchange for some much lighter pieces of paper. It was a good day for both of us.

Later in the show, Rob Bader asked me how I made out with his box, and I couldn’t resist telling him a good story. Rob laughed, because he had an even better one: “I paid a hundred dollars for that entire box, and I sold nine hundred dollars out of it in Chicago before you bought what was left,” he said.

I didn’t want to write about this until I shared the punchline with Bob Speerbrecher – fortunately, he thought it was as funny as Rob and I did. Everybody came out a winner on this one, and Bob is already well on his way to recouping his investment, too.

It’s like my father-in-law used to say: that’s why they put the backs on playing cards.

And then, just two months later, I would have even more reason to be thrilled that I had been involved in the grand Zeppelin flotilla of 2025 . . .

A Short Nine Years

These conversations I have with my fellow enthusiasts can take a long time. Last week, I published an article about Taylor’s Patent and its relationship to pencils made by William Lund (“Lund . . . ish” on October 10, 2025).

I had started the conversation nine years ago, with a rudimentary article about Lund’s spiral pencils and noting a discrepancy concerning whether the “Lund Patent” was issued in 1848 or 1856. 

Five years ago, Pam Sutton dropped pictures of her “Taylor’s Patent” pencils on Facebook.

I didn’t see Pam’s post until a couple weeks ago, when I was trying to learn more about a Lund-style pencil marked “Taylor’s Patent.” With Pam’s help, I found the text of the patent, issued in 1856, which mostly resolved that question. Lund was a “Patentee” only in the sense that he owned the rights to two patents: one issued to William Riddle in 1848, and the other for an improved version of Riddle’s patent issued to John George Taylor in 1856.

There were loose ends: I wanted to see Taylor’s patent drawings, but the research tools available in the United States don’t provide that information. Also, Pam had also posted images of a second pencil marked “Taylor’s Patent” that looked nothing like a Lund:

I’m used to playing the long game, and I fully expected that it would be years before I would be circling back around to tie up those loose ends.

It took five days.

Thierry Nguyen posted a comment at the blog that he had found the drawings for Taylor’s Patent 2823, which he then forwarded to me. The first image appears to be the original, and it is too faint to make out the details:

The other, however, is a republished version which uses the same images. It is much more clear:

Taylor’s Patent, these drawings reveal, covered two very different versions of his pencil: one has a spiral cut on the outside of the barrel, like a Riddle patent Lund, and the other has the spiral inside a smooth outer barrel – just like Pam’s second example.

Mystery solved.

The other lingering issue from that last article involved Pam’s comment that according to her notes, Taylor’s patent might have been patent number 1994, not number 2823. Terry also answered that one by providing a copy of the text for patent 1994 . . . or rather, patent request number 1994.

In England, applications are assigned one number and if granted, the approved patent is assigned a different one. Application number 1994 was filed by our man John George Taylor, but it was for “improvements in shaping and cutting conical penholders in wood and other materials.” It was filed on September 1, 1859 but apparently, it was never granted. Right man, wrong invention.

A Stainless Unicorn and Schröedinger's Platinum

The Wahl Company got into the writing instrument industry backwards. While Parker, Sheaffer, and Waterman were fountain pen companies which later added pencils to mtch their pens, Wahl started out making pencils first in 1915, when it was known as the Wahl Adding Machine Company and started making pencils under contract for Charles Keeran’s Eversharp Pencil Company. Later, after Wahl acquired a controlling interest in Keeran’s company, Wahl went into the pen business with the  purchase of the Boston Fountain Pen Company in 1917.

Wahl’s origins in the industry as a pencil manufacturer would influence the company in the decades to come, and that is what makes its products particularly fascinating to pencil collectors: there are many Eversharp pencils that do not have a matching fountain pen.

Except, of course, when it comes to those pesky Eversharp Skylines with sterling caps and other Skylines with clips marked “Wahl,” as shown in yesterday’s article. Those are a rare frustration for pencil collectors, because matching Skyline pencils are not known to exist. 

It is reasonable to conclude, given Wahl’s history, that no Skyline pencils were made with Wahl-marked clips: beginning in 1917, it was “The Wahl Pen and Eversharp Pencil,” and it wouldn’t be until much later that Wahl would mark a fountain pen model as an “Eversharp.” For that reason, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there probably never was a Skyline pencil marked “Wahl” on the clip. Prove me wrong, as they say.

Hope springs eternal, though, that one day a Skyline pencil with a sterling silver overlay will be found: it is one of those things that “should” exist, because there is no reason it should not exist and everything we know about Wahl suggests that it would exist.

When Pat Mohan went home from the Raleigh Pen Show to check the cap imprints on his Wahl-marked Skyline fountain pens for me, I’ll admit that I held out faint hope that Pat would return to the show with that knowing smile on his face I’ve seen so many times and a conversation starting with “I’ll bet you haven’t seen one of these” as he handed me a Wahl-marked Skyliine pencil.

Pat did return to the show with that exact expression on his face, and our conversation began exactly that way. No, he didn’t have a sterling Skyline pencil on him, but he had this:

There’s lots to unpack with this pencil, starting with the derby and clip assembly. This has what Eversharp called a “Streamliner” top end - instead of a buttressed clip, Streamliners lack the upper mounting.

The Eversharp Streamliner was a lower-priced version of the Skyline, designated Model 198 in the demi size and Model 199 as a full-length pencil, all as discussed on page 341 in Eversharp. Until Pat’s example surfaced, every Streamliner I have seen has sported a plain barrel, with no overlay or trim bands.

Now let’s pile on that stainless overlay. The Eversharp Skyline in stainless is the third most rare variation in the series – behind sterling silver and that mythical platinum version. I’d rate the solid gold Skylines as fourth most rare, at least when they were made, but their numbers continue to dwindle with the skyrocketing price of gold. The temptation to scrap 14k examples poses an unprecedented threat to their survival, particularly when it comes to badly dented or worn examples.

Within that subset of third-place stainless Skylines, Pat’s Streamliner has other unique characteristics. Note that the overlay is significantly shorter than “usual”:

The two examples in the center are the most commonly encountered Skyline Stainless variants, featuring either gold filled or the slightly less common stainless clip assembly. The example at bottom came from the late Fred Krinke’s auction – see “I’m Gonna Drive (500 Miles)” (April 3, 2021: Volume 7, page 4).

Whenever something comes along that isn’t supposed to exist, I always have to take into account the possibility that someone may have “made” it by combining parts that aren’t supposed to go together. I’ve considered and rejected that possibility.

First, transplanting derby and clip assemblies from one Skyline pencil to another is a huge pain in the neck. Repair instructions at the time directed repairmen to crush the entire derby assembly with a pair of pliers, pull it out, and press fit an entire new derby and clip assembly. The decades have not been kind to Skyline plastics, which have become so brittle that this procedure – labor intensive and risky even when these were new – is nearly (but not entirely) impossible now. I successfully performed the operation in “Radical Surgery on a Skyline” (February 21, 2013: Volume 2, page 58), but it took quite a bit of time. The experiment was only worthwhile because I was grafting a 14k solid gold overlay and derby onto a barrel from an ordinary Presentation example.

Also, the upper portion of the barrels of these overlay Skylines are milled down a bit so that the overlay is flush with the diameter of the lower barrel. If Pat’s weird Streamliner Stainless began life with a plain barrel, someone would have had to turning the top portion of the barrel on a lathe so that the stainless sleeve slides over it. Did I mention how brittle these Skyline plastics have become over the last eight decades?

Let’s assume that a hobbyist with above-average machining skills was willing to spend the time to precisely mill down the upper portion of an ordinary Skyline barrel, remove the derby, slip a shorter tube of stainless steel of the exact diameter into position, and install a Streamliner derby and clip assembly. 

That didn’t happen.

No Skyline I have ever seen has a “Made in USA” stamp on the barrel, and Pat’s example has that stamp just below the end of the overlay. Without question, Pat’s variation is factory.

Now I need to circle back around to that full length metal barrel from Fred Krinke’s auction. I took this picture of it before the auction started in case I didn’t win it:

This shot didn’t come out the way I hoped it would  – “Skyline Noir,” I called it when the image ran in Volume 7. It didn’t convey all the detail that I had hoped, but it did convey the mysterious and dramatic nature of the beast.

I have assumed that Fred’s Skyline was a prototype with a full length, stainless steel barrel. That’s how I reported it here at the blog and also in Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry. On page 317 in Eversharp, I noted “[t]he 1940 price sheet lists the Presentation Stainless as Model 178W, but a full-length stainless model is unlisted. It might have been Model 178S.”

Or . . . 

Recall from yesterday’s article that this same 1940 price sheet does list a Skyline with a platinum cap and barrel – the ultimate unicorn in the Skyline series, with no surviving fountain pens (Model 78P) “and – gulp – a platinum pencil (Model 178P).”  

Can platinum be mistaken for stainless steel? Yes it can, and it often is . . . but I’m not about to subject Fred’s pencil to scratch testing or other intrusive means that will damage it in any way, so I researched how else to distinguish the two metals. One way is the color of the metal: platinum is a deeper gray than stainless, which is brighter and has more of a modern feel. Have another look at this closeup of the tips:

I’d already noted the absence of the typical band around the nose found on other Skylines, and that almost matte, darker finish.

Platinum is also heavier than stainless steel: I had thought that Fred’s pencil was heavier just because the metal overlay is full length, but now that I’m wondering whether it might be platinum, I can feel more heft than I would expect. Of course, that’s not a reliable indicator, without a full length stainless barrel to weigh for comparison. 

As I explored non-invasive ways to test for platinum, the primary lesson I learned was that there are a lot of seriously weird and stupid people on the Internet. “Read the hallmark and see if it says platinum,” said one intellectual giant. There was one suggestion I thought was helpful, although I don’t know whether it is true: one source claims that hydrogen pyroxide will fizz dramatically when a few drops are applied to platinum, but not to stainless steel.

Janet looked at me a bit sideways when I came into the master bath, raided the first aid supplies, and put a few drops on the barrel of Fred’s pencil. Some context likely would have been helpful before I did that.

No fizz, for whatever that is worth, but that same source that had me doing weird things with a pencil in my bathroom also said it isn’t a particularly reliable test, depending on the purity of the platinum.

I’m torn between which is better: being able to introduce to you the first documented example of a Skyline Model 78P in platinum (and having to correct something I wrote in Eversharp), or having a wholly undocumented full stainless example.

I suppose until I have a more definitive diagnosis, I have both.

A Better, Simpler Explanation

Even though I’m best known for my work with mechanical pencils, I do buy fountain pens when the occasion calls for it. The occasion called for it when I stopped by Myk Daigle’s table at the Raleigh Show.

This is an Eversharp Skyline fountain pen, but with a cap overlay made of  sterling silver. Sterling caps on Skylines are the second most rare of all . . . even more so than solid gold. 

The only Skylines that are more rare than these are Skylines with platinum caps and barrels, which have long been rumored to exist, but to my knowledge if platinum Skylines were actually made, none are known to have survived. Skylines with sterling silver caps were not cataloged, but the platinum cap and barrel version was – on page 336 of Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry, I included a price sheet dated to 1940 which includes a reference to the platinum pen (Model 78P) and – gulp – a platinum pencil (Model 178P) model. The low-resolution image in the book was the best available and was contributed by Jim Mamoulides, who says he found it somewhere back in 2003.

No sterling cap Skyline pencils are known to exist, but I’m happy to settle for an example of the pen – not only for its extreme rarity, but also because the opportunity it provided to examine one in person gave me a little extra information that allows me to address a longstanding mystery about the Skyline. Note that the clip is marked “Wahl” rather than the usual Eversharp marking:

That matches the nib, which is also marked Wahl:

Collectors have debated these Wahl-marked Skylines for decades. On page 349, I included an image of Wahl-clip Skylines in “Modern Stripe” (also referred to by collectors as “Moire”) in Pat Mohan’s collection.

“There is no definitive proof concerning how or why these were made,” I wrote. “The leading theory is that Eversharp, Inc. stamped the Wahl name on a few pens to preserve exclusive rights to use the Wahl name – or to prevent anyone else from using it.”

That statement is correct – I mean, that is the leading theory. I have always thought that leading theory was pure hogwash.

Chapter Fourteen in Eversharp, “End of the Wahl Company,” details the events beginning in 1939 which ultimately ended in the reorganization of The Wahl Company into Eversharp, Inc. under the new leadership of Martin L. Straus. Several unfortunate events befell Wahl in 1939, including the Federal Trade Commission’s ruling that Wahl’s Safety Ink Shut-Off did not work as advertised and renewed litigation initiated by Charles Keeran (inventor of the original Eversharp), and several of Wahl’s directors resigned in December 1939. A new corporation, Eversharp, Inc., was formed in March of 1940, and on May 7, 1940, Wahl’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly to merge the Wahl Company into Eversharp, Inc. 

Now consider the history of the Skyline, outlined here in “The Post that Launched 454 Pages” (August 15, 2025). Martin Straus had retained Industrial Designer Henry Dreyfuss to create the look of these new pens and pencils, and Dreyfuss’ conceptual drawings were dated January, 1940. Dreyfuss’ drawings show unmarked clips, but otherwise they show the Skyline in what would be its finished form.

Dreyfuss also designed the rectangular cartouche containing double-check marks that would be incorporated into the Skyline’s clip. His preliminary design was dated June 6, 1940, and the final drawings were dated July 17, 1940. The Skyline debuted in newspaper advertisements in October, 1940.

The Skyline was essentially ready to move into production while the Wahl Company was on its last legs, while a reorganization into Eversharp, Inc. was in the works but had not yet been voted on by shareholders. My theory, as I wrote the book, was that Wahl-marked Skylines were test marketed during that uncertain time, perhaps as an additional means to influence the votes of uncertain shareholders in favor of a merger.

It’s a good theory, but that isn’t enough by itself to prove the point. “Although Martin Straus and Henry Dreyfuss began work on the Skyline prior to the Wahl reorganization in April 1940, there is no evidence that Wahl introduced the model before the merger,” I admitted on page 349.

Now, with Myk’s example of this sterling-cap Skyline in hand, I believe the clip assembly on this Wahl-marked example provides a little more evidence. Myk’s example has a damaged clip assembly, so he gave me the original assembly in a little baggie – he had fitted it with a typical, Eversharp-marked clip and derby for daily use. Those assemblies have an imprint that reads “Eversharp Skyline”:

The Wahl-marked clip that Myk’s pen originally was fitted with, though, reads only “Wahl.” Note that the tabs securing the clip to the band have broken.

If the leading theory is correct – that Eversharp, Inc. stamped the Wahl name on a few pens just to preserve the new company’s rights to the Wahl name – the would be no need to stamp the Wahl name here. In fact, it would make a lot more sense to stamp the Eversharp name there to make clear who was using the name.

I believe the Wahl name was stamped all over these examples with Wahl-marked clips because they were made before the merger was approved in May, 1940, during test marketing of the new pens done to provide nervous shareholders with some comfort that great things were on the horizon if they voted in favor of the merger.

I put my theory to the test: Pat Mohan was also in attendance at the Raleigh Show, and he lives close enough to the show that he was able to look more closely at all of his Wahl-marked Skylines. Without exception, Pat reported the next day, every example he owns has this same Wahl imprint on the back side.

And when Pat returned to Raleigh bearing that news, he had something else with him . . . 

Tales from the Junk Box

After my flurry of purchases from Michael Krut at the Detroit Pen Show, Michael got to thinking. “I’ve got more pencils at home if you want me to bring them tomorrow,” he said.

It’s like he doesn’t even know me. Of course, I said.

He brought two small tubs back to the show Saturday morning, and I spent what little time I had between customers diving in to see what all was in there. I had cherrypicked a handful of goodies from the bunch when Michael wandered by and asked what I thought. I said I thought I would have much more fun buying all of them and going through them in greater detail when things slowed down. 

After I pinky-swore that I was not going to turn around and sell them for thousands of dollars, we agreed on a fair parts price. By Sunday morning things had quieted down enough that I could really pick through things. One of the boxes contained random fare, and the other was all Eversharp – there were a few complete pencils in there, but mostly it was just parts, including these:

There’s plenty of stuff here that I’ll use eventually, even though all the roller clips they once had have likely been transplanted into higher-dollar fountain pens. Before I wrote Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry, I would have written that top example off as a non-Wahl interloper. Now that I have, though, I recognize it as a Wahl product – and a really hard one to find, at that.

Chapter Thirteen in Eversharp covers subbrands and rebadges; the former of these are Wahl products sold under different names, and the latter are Wahl-made products branded for other retailers who would sell them as their own. This, I believe, is a Wahl rebadge. On page 285 in Eversharp, there’s a discussion of  “Hycrest” and “Palmer Method” pens, and they have that same distinctive band treatment, with two wider bands flanking a center one:

Palmer Method pens and pencils were specially made for students of the Palmer Handwriting Method. “Hycrest,” however, is a little more difficult to pin down – the only solid lead researchers have been able to turn up is that it might have been a store brand for Marshall, Field & Co. At least, the Hycrest name was used by Marshall Field in connection with leather goods. 

Since the clip is broken off and the barrel is unmarked, there’s no way to know which of these possibilities is more the more likely, or if there’s another contender out there. If I had to guess, I’d put my money on Marshall Field, since the Palmer Method line was more utilitarian than flashy. Here is our mystery pencil alongside a Wahl-made pencil with a Palmer Method clip, in the form of an Equipoise but in rosewood hard rubber without trim. I found it on Steve Weiderlight’s table when we saw each other in May at the Chicago Show.

This Palmer Method pencil is identical to Joe Nemecek’s example, which was pictured on page 285.

I’ll replace the clip if I ever find either a Hycrest or Palmer Method clip – and it will be a tall order finding a Hycrest clip – but before I do, I’ll need to figure out how to remove the inner liner. Sounds simple enough, but it isn’t . . . I don’t know which way to turn.

Here’s a run of “Signature-Style” Eversharp pencils as shown in Chapter Eight of Eversharp; “Signature-Style,” as I went to great lengths to explain in the book, is a more accurate way to describe these than “Tempoint pencils,” as I labeled them in The Catalogue. At bottom is the Equipoise-based Palmer Method, and there is something important to notice: the tips.

Those examples shown here with steel tips have the Improved Eversharp mechanism inside, which had been in use since 1924, and those tips are threaded as you would expect. The Equipoise-based Palmer Method pencil at bottom has a gold-filled tip . . . and Equipoise tips are reverse threaded.

This new Hycrest/Palmer Method pencil has a gold filled tip like an Equipoise, but it is otherwise configured more like a 1924 Improved Eversharp, with the joint at the top rather than in the center of the barrel. That tip is stuck pretty well, and I’m reluctant to crank down on it too much; those gold filled tips are softer brass under the plating, and if I’m cranking the wrong way I might snap the threading off of the end of the mechanism. 

There was another black flattop Signature-Style pencil in that little box. I meant to take a picture of it before I found a replacement roller clip on Myk Daigle’s table:

Note the gold tip and center barrel joint: yes, this is one of the later Signature-style pencils fitted with the same mechanism used on the later Equipoise line. I have one like this, and it was included in Figure 8-45 on page 188 in Eversharp. However, the one in my collection didn’t have this on top:

What better place to pick up an Eversharp with a Cadillac emblem than at a pen show in the Motor City? Besides, it goes nicely with this one – I think I found it at the Baltimore show in March:

Speaking of Eversharps with emblems, I did take a shot at this one in an online auction a couple years ago, but I didn’t stand a chance:

The proud attorney in me thought this might be nice to have, even though I’d rather have “pencil collector” than “lawyer" on my tombstone.

Back at the Detroit Show, Gary Weimer was in attendance, and he had this one on his table:

I resisted buying it until he told me how little he wanted for it.

I’ve seen Shriner emblems with black back grounds, sometimes with red, but never with baby blue – somewhere, I think I’ve got a black background emblem like this on an Eversharp, and I didn’t want to go too far down the rabbit hole of buying Eversharps with cool emblems.

Unless, of course, that ship has already sailed.

For Art's Sake

The Artcraft Pen Company recently came up in connection with the Rex Manufacturing Company, which supplied Artcraft with pencils made pursuant to McNary’s 1924 patent and at least one other example during the “Four Horsemen” patent era between 1926 and 1930. See “The Proud Rexist” on September 29, 2025. 

What was outside the scope of that previous article was finds such as this one. This image is a few years old, so I don’t remember where these came from:

Both of these share a simple Artcraft logo, with the name spelled out on an artist’s palette.

Here is where American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953 comes in handy: that logo was the subject of trademark registration 141,118, applied for by Ford D. Cromer of the Edison-Cromer Pen Company on May 14, 1920. In the application, Cromer claimed the mark was first used on March 1, 1920.

These were definitely not made by the Rex Manufacturing Company; in fact, that grey example looks like Parker Parkette celluloid, but shared celluloid is typically insufficient to make such attributions since few pen companies (Parker included) procured stock celluloid from suppliers rather than making it in-house. What is inside says a lot more about who supplied them:

When an Artcraft pencil along these lines is shown alongside a disassembled Sheaffer Balance, it is obvious that at least what was inside came from Sheaffer. That ties in well with my recent discussion of the Diamond Medal brand in “Diamonds . . . But Not in the Rough” (October 9, 2025).

So we have an earlier series of Artcraft pencils made by Rex in the 1920s, and this series made (at least on the inside) by Sheaffer in the 1930s. Now, consider the following:

This was the weird monster from Gabriel’s recent care package, and I had no idea what it was until it arrived and I could inspect it more closely.

I was trying to photograph the imprint in detail without highlighting it, but I finally gave up and broke out the china marker. It’s easier to photograph that way and besides, I enjoy these things more when I’m not craning my neck over a loupe to see what’s going on.

Now wait a minute, I thought as I was writing this. Here’s an Artcraft desk pencil, made using a repurposed fountain pen section with a pencil mechanism shoved into it. Here’s another Artcraft pencil, with a plastic that looks just like that grey marbled celluloid Parker used on the Parkette series. Where have I seen those before . . . 

Ah. It was right here, back on August 7, 2025 (“An Answer Courtesy of Dex”).

This pencil also featured in one of the very first articles here at the blog - “What the Heck Is This?” (December 15, 2011: Volume 1, page 47). It is unmarked, but I have always attributed it to the Pick Pen Company of Cincinnati, Ohio due to the flat, wafer-shaped protrusion on top of the cap. Note, however, the Parker-style dimples around the nose.\

The answer I have come up with is not the most satisfying, but it is the best theory I can pose. We know that Rex-made pencils were supplied to C.E. Barrett & Co. in Chicago, and Barrett only engaged in limited manufacturing: mostly what Barrett did is assemble pens and pencils from parts. When I see Parker-style noses, Sheaffer mechanisms, and Parkette-ish celluloids, the best I can conclude is that C.E. Barrett supplied Artcraft with its pencils – at first, when they were being supplied by Rex. Later, parts from various sources were married together, the Artcraft name was slapped on the side, and out the door they went.

And what of that long-short pencil I have attributed to Pick for all of these years? It is unmarked, so it may have been cobbled together at Barrett’s offices after Pick folded using a leftover Pick fountain pen barrel, a nondescript fountain pen barrel that conveniently nested inside, with a Parker nose-drive mechanism wedged into the section. 

I thought I had that settled back in 2011. Now I’m not so sure.

House of Hutcheon

As we left things yesterday, I had narrowed down the likely manufacturer of the Mabie Magazine Pencil, including the versions marked for Salz Brothers, Hutcheon Brothers, Hallmark (United Jewelers), and the Carey Pen Company, to one of two manufacturers: Mabie, Todd & Co. or Hutcheon Brothers.

There’s good reason I can’t narrow it down more than that.

I laid out the history of Hutcheon Brothers in “The Hutcheon Brothers Sidebar” (July 12, 2017: Volume 5, page 41). The firm was originally named O’Neill & Company, and Alfred G. Hutcheon purchased the company in 1913. Hutcheon had for several years been associated with – you guessed it – Mabie, Todd & Co. The American Stationer reported Hutcheon’s departure from Mabie Todd on August 23, 1913, and Hutcheon left on good terms. “[N]aturally he leaves the old house with some regrets,” the announcement states:

In that previous article, I also included an early advertisement for Hutcheon, published in The American Stationer on October 27, 1917. It shows . . . you guessed it . . . a Hutcheon Magazine Pencil. “We also manufacture various styles of pens, pencils, pen mounts, etc.” the announcement reads; that’s terribly ambiguous. It neither states that Hutcheon made these pencils, nor understandably does it fail to emphasize, if they were supplied by Mabie Todd, that Hutcheon didn’t make these.

Alfred Hutcheon’s good relationship with his former associates at Mabie Todd means tells me that short of finding concrete documentation, we will never know whether it was Mabie Todd, or Hutcheon, or a partnership between the two firms that was responsible for making all of these Magazine pencils. The cooperation between the two firms was further illustrated here in “The Mabie Todd - Hutcheon Connection” (July 13, 2017: Volume 5, page 44), in which I noted how similar the patterns on some Hutcheon “Hutch Clutch Pencils” are to those already in use over at Mabie, Todd & Co.

The Hutch Clutch Pencil was Alfred Hutcheon’s first order of business after he acquired O’Neill & Co. This announcement for the model’s introduction was published in The American Stationer on November 15, 1913 – just three months after Alfred acquired the firm. Note that the firm was still known as O’Neill & Company, but the new pencils were named after the firm’s new owner.

Gabriel Goldsmith has been able to add some context to the Hutcheon story:

The top two examples of the Hutch Clutch Pencil were in his first care package, and the demonstrator at bottom was in the batch that just arrived last week. The clutch pencils are unusual in that the gold-filled barrels are completely unadorned.

But what is even more unusual is that these are not marked with the typical diamond-shaped hallmark Hutcheon was using by 1917, when that announcement in American Stationer was published. Instead, both of these have an H inside what looks like a house – for the “House of Hutcheon,” perhaps?

My working theory is that these Hutch Clutch pencils were the earliest ones made - shortly after August 1913, before Alfred Hutcheon brought with him his metalworking experience honed over at Mabie Todd and before he had settled on a new logo for the business he had just purchased.

And now for a closer look at that demonstrator pencil, which by all outward appearances is a Finepointer or Finer Pointe Hutcheon pencil:

Several cutouts show the internal workings of the pencil, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get all the rust removed and get it working again. Challenge . . . accepted – but not right now. That’s a good snowy day project for this winter. Although I’m certain the pencil was made by Hutcheon, the only marking on the barrel is “Nickle Silver/Made in USA”

Now to back up a bit . . . as mentioned earlier, Hutcheon pencils along these lines are found marked either “Finepointer” or “Finerpointe,” a distinction that I discussed in an early article here at the blog - see “I Say Finepointer, You Say Finerpointe, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off (January 26, 2012: Volume 1, page 92). In that article, written before I knew a lot of things I know now, I theorized that “Finepointer” sounded so much like Mabie Todd’s “Fyne Poynt” line that Mabie Todd objected to the use of the name and forced Hutcheon to change it.

I was sooooo close . . . now that I know how close the relationship was between the two firms, I don’t think it was as adversarial as I had suggested. In the end, Hutcheon was granted trademark registration number 166,978 for a mark including the word “Finerpointe,” as included in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953:

There’s a lot of information to digest in this registration certificate. First is that the Hutcheon Brothers numbered four: Alfred, Robert, William, and Forbes. Then there’s something of an open question as to what exactly is being registered - the name “Finerpointe,” the diamond-shaped hallmark, or the combination of those two things along with a dog (a pointer, of course). 

That exact mark – including name, diamond mark, and dog – is found etched on the Hutcheon display case that houses all of my Hutcheon pencils at the museum (see “A Box, A Display, and a Clue” (July 31, 2021: Volume 7, page 304)).

According to the trademark registration, Hutcheon Brothers first used “the mark” – whatever that means – on February 1, 1922, and since the application was filed on February 25, that’s a fairly reliable date. However, that does not adequately explain this one, at least to me:

Ringtops in this configuration are much harder to find than the full-length versions; this example is nice and clean, and while many collectors turn up a nostril or two at owners’ inscriptions, historians generally don’t have aversions to them as long as they are tastefully done – and when those inscriptions add a bit of context, they help rather than hurt. This example bears a 1922 presentation inscription.

If the trademark registration is accurate, I would expect this one to be marked “Finerpointe,” but it isn’t.

“Finepointer” it is, along with the diamond-shaped hallmark. I still lack definitive evidence that Hutcheon called these the Finepointer until February 1, 1922, then flipped a few switches to call them the Finerpointe, and the transition may have been gradual; after all, 1922 is when my ringtop was engraved for its new owner, not necessarily when it was made. 

During my discussion about the Magazine pencils yesterday, I had mentioned that Hutcheon Brothers was almost exclusively a manufacturing firm which did not buy rebadged products to sell – with the possible  exception of Mabie Todd. What would add credence to the argument that Hutcheon actually made all of these Magazine pencils would be evidence that Hutcheon supplied other manufacturers with its products.

We have that evidence.

First, there was the “ERCO” pencils made for the Eagle Regalia Company – see “The Other Eagle” (August 4, 2021: Volume 7, page 316), shown here alongside a Hutcheon Finepointer:

And then there are these . . . 

Both of these are clearly Hutcheon-made Finerpointe pencils, even though one has a little different finish on the clip.

Both are rebadged for the Edison Pen Company, one with the Edison name and the other marked “Ever Ready.”

I discussed the relationship between the Ever Ready brand in “A Pesky Brand” (June 7, 2021: Volume 7, page 173). Edison pens were sold alongside Ever Ready pencils, we know, in 1922 and perhaps a little earlier; that Edison script logo was first used in 1920. The Ever Ready brand name was passed around to other manufacturers later, after the Finerpointe and likely Hutcheon itself went the way of the dodo.

And then there is this Hutcheon-made pencil, which fits in so nicely with everything I’ve been discussing for the last couple days . . .

The cap is a bit bent up, but all I cared about was the imprint on the barrel:

Hallmark. Apparently the United Jewelers relationship ran strong with Hutcheon Brothers.

So there you have it: Hutcheon made rebadged Finerpointe pencils and supplied them to others, but there is no evidence that Hutcheon sold rebadged products which were supplied to it with the Hutcheon name . . . with the possible exception, of course, of Alfred’s old friends at Mabie, Todd & Co.