More on Ephraim Johnson

As mentioned yesterday, Ephraim Johnson is best known for his “Pearl Patent” of December 5, 1871, which protected the manner in which he affixed slabs of mother of pearl to his pencil barrels. Now we know from yesterday’s article that he was the originator of the enameled “racing stripes” for which the A.T. Cross Company became so well known in later year.

Another design feature for which Ephraim Johnson is well known is the way he inlaid metal and mother of pearl into hard rubber and celluloid barrels; two examples of this technique were in that collection of Victorian pens and pencils David Nishimura and I purchased from Rob Bader:

Magic pencils with this treatment are without exception marked for E.S. Johnson.

The sliding dip pen, however, is marked for A.W. Faber.

I sorted out the relationships between all of the Fabers in a series of articles beginning with “Faber in America” (January 5, 2015: Volume 4, page 69). Both A.W. Faber and Eberhard Faber descended from Kaspar Faber, who started making pencil in Stein, Germany in 1761. Kaspar was succeeded by his son, Anton Wilhelm Faber, which is where “A.W. Faber” came from. Anton Wilhelm in turn handed the business off to his son Georg Leonhard Faber; two of Georg’s sons, Lothar and Johann, then took over the firm; Georg’s third son, Eberhard, emigrated to the United States. 

Initially, Eberhard’s mission was to run an American branch of the A.W. Faber, but as the years passed the American and German firms diverged. This dip pen was likely made during the turbulent times when the unruly Americans were asserting their independence and A.W. Faber was evolving from the remote home office into a competitor. 

None of these examples with Johnson’s inlay work are stamped with a patent date, although I was certain at some point I had seen a design or utility patent by Ephraim S. Johnson for it. As I browsed through American writing Instrument Patents 1799-1910, I found several other Johnson patents, including Design Patent 5,377, issued on November 21, 1871.

This one caught my eye because it reminded me of something else that came out of Bader’s Victorian collection.

This dip pen and pencil set did not initially make the cut for entry into the museum, and I had to fish it back out of the cases of inventory I’m taking to the Ohio Show later this week. Johnson’s patent protects “dots or studs of gold, silver, or pearl, arranged in an ornamental manner,” and this isn’t quite that - instead, star-shaped cuts are arranged in that same pattern, and at the ends there’s a maker’s name. Yep: A.W. Faber.

As much as I would like to attribute this one to E.S. Johnson, I don’t think so in this case. Samson Mordan in England liked to do very similar patterns, long before E.S. Johnson received his 1871 patent, and this set has more of a continental vibe than anything Johnson would have made. In addition, the opposite side of the pen and pencil is another, less prominent stamp that suggests this was not made in the United States. “Depose,” it reads.

The word “depose” in jewelers’ circles means “registered” in French – not necessarily registered in France, although that would be a reasonable conclusion. Made in Germany for export to France would also make sense. 

Still, this set fits in so nicely, both in this article and in the Faber (Eberhard and A.W.) wing at the museum. Even though I generally try to limit my collection to American items, I think this set is going to hang around here for awhile alongside its American cousins.