Some American Adventures

The American Lead Pencil Company of New York doesn’t get much respect, since the company’s products were made for the lower-priced market. Cross-town rival Eagle Pencil Company did much the same thing, but with a much wider range of products and, therefore, a proportionally greater cult following. 

A few things have been accumulating around the A.L.P. wing of the museum (in case you have seen pencils with that imprint on the top . . . well, now you know what that stands for), starting with one that is so nice, you might question whether “lower-priced” is really a fair characterization of the company’s products:

This is a Venus Everpointed, and about the only thing subtle about it is the faint imprint on the upper barrel.

These came both with slightly domed crown tops like this, but also with rounded caps resembling a metal Conklin pencil. Both were pictured a few years ago in “The ‘Everrounded,’ Perhaps” (March 1, 2018: Volume 5, page 168), in which other variations along these lines appeared:

The American Lead Pencil Company’s bread and butter, however, was the company’s woodcased pencils, and the Venus name is more closely associated with wood pencils than their mechanical ones. American, like Eagle, had a flair for kitsch, and one of their more dramatic offerings surfaced in a box lot of pencils John Martenson sold to me at the Chicago Show in May:

This is the American Model 400 “Club,” complete with a figural golf club tip for which a patent was applied for:

That would have been a design patent to protect the tip’s appearance, rather than a utility patent to protect its function – except perhaps on the miniest of mini-golf courses. I was unable to find any patent issued to protect a golf club-shaped pencil topper. I did list a design patent for a hockey stick -shaped pencil in American Writing Instrument Patents Vol. 2: 1911-1945, but hockey players don’t use woods, and that design patent wasn’t issued until 1932.

There’s another clue on the back side of the club: “Trade Mark.” 

I’m striking out again there: in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, I didn’t list a trademark either for a golf club-shaped pencil, or for the word “Club” in connection with writing instruments.

What I did find, when I went to file my American “Club” pencil away, was that I already had one – or at least, something very close:

Apparently the “Club” came both in a wood and an iron, also marked with the “Trade Mark” on the face of the club:

This No. 129 “Aurora” set of wax crayons with holder  came from an online auction:

The holder is the most primitive form of “mechanical” pencil, called a porte crayon amongst those who collect pencils with their pinkies extended. It is nothing more than a tube with a slot on the end - sliding the ring forward with a crayon in place clamps the holder down to secure it for writing.

This next item is a nice piece of ephemera that was gifted to me by a visitor to the museum – I don’t remember who it was, so someone please remind me:

This 1892 postcard thanked a good customer for a recent order.

Such a nice snapshot in time, with fantastic artwork and a connection to the Housatonic Railroad Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was the perfect piece to put next to my “Little Giant” American dropper pencil, which has that same shield logo - see “That’s Heavy, Man” (December 20, 2016: Volume 4, page 294).

I have no idea where this last item came from – these things seem to reproduce like rabbits whenever I turn out the lights in the museum for the night.

The box is empty, and I haven’t seen an American Lead Pencil branded as the “Jewel” – but if I ever do, I know where it belongs!