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.