Indians Unmasked

I have always liked those combination pens and pencils marked “Indian” on the clips. The plastics are great, and they are steeped in mysterious and unsubstantiated collectors’ lore suggesting they were made for sale as souvenirs on Native American reservations out west.

Alas, I have tried to dodge buying combination pens and pencils because that is yet another deep rabbit hole, and there are hundreds of combos out there to chase. I’m plenty deep in my own rabbit hole, thank you very much.

Then there’s the cost; Indian combos command a premium, and I haven’t been able to justify the price of admission. Until, that is, at the DC show this year, when Jim Carpenito offered me a large swath of pencils from his collection. I’ll admit this one is one of the ones that caused me to pull the trigger on the bunch.

Usually, these have a simple ball clip, but this is a little different, with a ribbed clip and smaller “Indian” imprint in the medial rib:

Jim Mamoulides recently posted a great article on the subject of these over at PenHero.com (the link is here). In his article, he attributes these to the American Lead Pencil Company on the basis of a 1937 American catalog in the Hoboken Historical Museum in Hoboken, New Jersey. I tracked down that 1937 catalog, and it does indeed include a page showing the American Indian combos, Model 4112C, in four colors.

Jim has examples in all four colors, and he borrowed my example to add to his article to illustrate its slightly different clip (image courtesy of and copyrighted by Jim Mamoulides).

Although the confirmation has been decades in the making, and collectors’ lore always dies hard, it never was too much of a stretch to believe that American was responsible for these. Here is a spread of American pencils in unusual plastics – note that the clips are the same ones typically found on Indian combos, and there’s identical rows of dimples around the nose cones to assist with gripping.

Part of what has confounded researchers over the years is the fact that the distinctive plastics used on these Indian Combos have been found on pens and pencils marked with other names; Jim notes the existence of some combos in similar materials marked “Waltham” (undoubtably one of the group of Chicago pen brands owned by Joseph Starr, which also included the later Conklins after 1938).  Joe Nemecek, over at Joe’s Pencil Pages, shows his Waltham pen and pencil set, as well as an unmarked ringtop:

I recently turned up an example marked “Drexel” on the clip, shown here alongside the unmarked ringtop from “Freakishly Awesome” (December 6, 2015: Volume 4, page 24).

It was missing its center band, so I found one that at least fits, for now – until I find a better match. 

Did the American Lead Pencil Company supply Joseph Starr or whoever made the “Drexel” line with pens and/or pencils? It is tempting to explore connections like this when it comes to plastics that are almost exclusively found on products made by one maker, but in the case of the Indian plastics, the plastics alone don’t answer that question. 

Other “exclusive” materials turn up in unexpected places – Sheaffer’s “howling souls” (birdseye) and “blue clown” plastics, for example have turned up on pens and pencils made by Autopoint, Rite Rite and Eversharp, when we know there was no connection between manufacturers.

Nearly all manufacturers sourced celluloid from the companies that supplied the entire industry, most notably DuPont. Leftover or unwanted stock that was exclusive at one point might have been distributed to other customers, either before a pen manufacturer contracted an exclusive deal or after the expiration of that deal. The pen manufacturers themselves may also have sold leftover stock to their competitors. 

Still, it’s worth noting for future reference: while Indian plastics on Walthams, Drexels and the like don’t establish any connections by itself, it is a bit of evidence. Other evidence may later support or refute such a conclusion.