After David Nishimura and I finished negotiating the purchase of a Victorian collection from Rob Bader in DC, Rob mentioned that he had a few other random pencils that had come from that same collection. Since we bought everything else, Rob said, take whatever you want out of them.
I wasn’t greedy, but I did grab a couple items that are perennial favorites to me, including these four:
First is that cute little Gordon, with its telephone dialer and hugely disproportionate “fanged” clip. Even if I had five identical ones at home I would have snagged this one – the color is amazing, the telephone dialer ones are a delight, and besides – it was “free” (ish, he tells himself, after the amount of money he spent on the Victorians).
The clip didn’t look nearly this nice when I rescued it, and there was a lot of work involved in getting it looking presentable. The effort was worth it, because this scratched one of those longtime itches I’d forgotten I had.
In “Like Playing the Lottery” (March 7, 2013: Volume 2, page 83), I mused whether a two-tone Gordon was correct. “It’s possible that Gordon decided to jazz things up a bit by making two-color pencils out of parts from each,” I wrote, “but if anyone’s got a red veined example with a bronze and cream cap and wants to swap parts, I’m all ears!”
Now I’m all ears for an all red veined example. And it continues . . .
That was happy accident number one from Rob’s freebie pile. Here’s number two:
I like these later Moore “Mastercraft” pencils, and I figured since I probably already had one, I wouldn’t mind carrying this one around as an everyday doodler (and besides, I told myself, it’s “free”).
And then I checked my photo archive . . .
I couldn’t have called a better shot.
That blue “Hiriter” is another one I wouldn’t have thought twice about if there was more money to be paid. Hiriter was a David Kahn brand (Kahn is best known as maker of the Wearever), although I don’t know if the Hiriter was for Kahn’s own account or whether it was supplied to some retailer. It wasn’t a high quality affair, but still – I liked the clip and the color, and when I got it home:
Now I have one that has all of its parts.
As for the last one in this group, it is a Dur-O-Lite and one of the earliest ones, at that. The company was founded in 1926, and that square bolt securing the clip to the barrel was only used until 1928. It isn’t the earliest, but it’s pretty early – that longer nose was adopted in early 1927.
I was sure I had one, but I’m a sucker for these and if I run across one that needs a clip or a good nose, I figured it would be handy to have. Besides . . . its free . . . and yes, I did have one.
But the one I have didn’t have this written on the side, which I didn’t notice when I plucked it from the pile to bring home:
