Tales from (That Other) Junk Box

I mentioned in “Tales From the Junk Box” on October 17 that I had purchased two small junk boxes from Michael Krut at the Detroit show. That earlier article featured Eversharp odds and ends that came from one of those boxes, and I casually noted that the other box contained “random fare.”

Random yes, and nearly all of its contents still reside there until the day comes when I need to scavenge parts . . . there were, however, a few things that merit a sentence or two:

Starting at the top is a pencil marked “Welsharp,” and I think these are best attributed to the Welsh Manufacturing Company, which may have faced objections from Eversharp for the use of that name. I’ve got four of these, all of which feature similar interesting plastics. The example at bottom in this next image is just awful . . . but it doesn’t eat much or take up that much room.

Next is a “Varsity,” rendered in the same script with that distinctive loop-around which was also used on pencils branded “Wilrite.” I’ve found a couple others along these lines over the years:

The other red one is marked “National” in a clip sharing the same design as other brands associated with Joseph Starr, that Chicago rascal best remembered as offering those later Chicago Conklin abominations. Similar clips are found on some pencils marked “Waltham” and if I recall (without plowing through drawers of similar fare) with other names as well. National pencils aren’t anything to write home about either, but they did come in a wide variety of pretty colors – so in it went with the others:

Next up, in black, is difficult to spot at first, since the clip is broken. Pen guys would call it a “Waterman 92 pencil,” which is a bit of a disservice since the pencil had its own designation as Model 93. As is the case with so many models – not just Waterman – black is the most difficult to find, so I’ve kept it as a placeholder until the day comes when a better example takes its place.

The second black pencil is what’s left of a Salz ‘Salrite missing its clip, but there’s two interesting things about it that keep it out of the parts bins for the time being. First is that metal band around where the clip was: while I’ve seen that treatment on a few of the later gold-filled ‘Salrites in rosewood hard rubber, I haven’t seen it on the black hard rubber models with nickel trim. See “Reacquainted with Old Friends” on August 12 and the Lodge-I-Cal in “That Last, Fascinating Reprise” on August 14.

This is a later model, marked with both of the Pencil Products Corporation’s patents issued in 1919 and 1922:

The other thing that is interesting about this one is the barrel, which lacks the typical ‘Salrite imprint but is marked number 114, in the same font as the model numbers imprinted on those sales samples from “One Spectacular Fell Swoop” (August 13).

Then there’s that gray pencil, made from the same celluloid seen on some later Eversharp Bantam pens and pencils with those purple flecks:

I theorize that this might be an unmarked pencil from the Camel Pen Company.

It isn’t an exact match, but the overall lines and similarity of their clips are undeniable.

The last one is newer than the others, marked “Kreisler” on the center band. Although these are newer than I typically go for, they do have a distinctive look and the mechanisms are solid, likely supplied either by Cross or Garland.

And, that jogged my memory to tell you about some things about the Kreisler . . .