More on Racing Stripes

As detailed on October 28, it was Ephraim S. Johnson and not Alonzo Cross who was awarded the design patent for “racing stripes” on writing instruments, but those rights were likely shared with Cross (and with those whom Cross supplied, such as Bates & Bacon) while the patent was active. 

After Johnson’s patent expired, though, A.T. Cross would take Johnson’s idea to an entirely new level. In this group of Cross “Alwrite” pencils, note the bottom one:

That striped green one came from Jeffrey Krasner, who sold me a box full o’ stuff at the Boston Show in 2022. All of these are marked Cross with “Alwrite” in script below:

“Alwrite” was a Cross trademark, applied for by Walter R. Boss, its president, on January 13, 1919. Boss claimed that the company began using the mark on December 5, 1918, and the mark was awarded registration number 129,664.

Those large plastic models, with their two-piece tips, were also rebadged and supplied to LeBoeuf and Grieshaber, and I haven’t had the heart to scavenge a tip to complete that jade example. The real focus for today’s purposes are the twin sets of twin stripes on the bottom one: those aren’t painted, but are separate pieces of black plastic sandwiched in place.

Next is this one, which slipped through the cracks. It was hiding in a pile of junk that sold for peanuts in an online auction:

The Cross Century is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to miss what’s special here, although I’m surprised nobody else noticed the telltale racing stripes. This isn’t a Cross Century - the name was adopted in commemoration of A.T. Cross’s 100th anniversary in 1946. For the Century, clips are more streamlined, and when you see a ball clip, that’s a dead giveaway that we are looking at a pre-Century streamlined Cross pencil. In fact, this one has one foot in the past and one foot in what’s to come: it’s somewhat obscured by the engine turned pattern, but it has the Alwrite name mid-barrel.

As you can see, it is missing the typical conical black plastic piece on the top. No worries, I thought – but in hindsight I should have worried a little bit, because it was tougher to replace than I expected. I had thought all I needed to do was salvage a black plastic top from those common, chrome Century ballpoints and pencils. Not so:

The tops on Modern Cross Century pens and pencils are press fit, while these pre-Century pencils have end pieces that are threaded. I went through my stash and found a couple other ball clip Cross pencils

Since I found two and one is a duplicate, I wasn’t too concerned repurposing the top piece from one of them.

And, once the transplant was completed, I had what I considered to be the finished shot for this article - a happy family of Cross racing stripes on parade.

Alas . . . the family was about to get happier. 

This one also appeared in an online auction, with badly deteriorated paint and like the other one, missing its top piece. I was hesitant to steal the one from my other plain, ball clip Cross - so I experimented a bit with the press-fit top that I had removed from a modern Century. After I turned down the diameter a bit, I was able to get it to thread into the top end; while the attachment is different, the more modern Century top piece is otherwise a perfect fit.

Then there was the paint, which was badly chipped in several spots showing ugly brass underneath. I used masking tap, a bottle of Testor’s black model paint and a set of tiny paint brushes to bring it back to life.

In 1996, Cross did do a 150th Anniversary pen in this same configuration, complete with ball clip, and there was also a matching pencil (although the pencils I’ve seen were in gold fill rather than chromed). There are differences, though, and this one is the real deal. The 150th Anniversary pens and pencils used .9mm leads, while this one takes 1.1mm. In addition, the Anniversary edition was not marked with the pre-Century AXT imprint – as in A.T. “Cross.”