The Chicago Victorians

I found a few great Victorian pieces to add to the museum at the Chicago show this year. I know a few of these came from Mike Greaney, and it was great to catch up with him since I last saw him:

That top one is a convertible pencil - you can either keep it in the holder on a chain, or withdraw it:

The neat ribbed top had me thinking Edward Todd before I pulled out my loupe - but the Edward Todds I have along these lines are telescoping pencils that extend by friction as they are withdrawn:

The patent on the Edward Todd pieces is August 9, 1892; I wrote about these in “The Hicks Variation” (August 24, 2017: Volume 5, page 96).

The more I thought about that, the more I thought that wasn’t right. It wasn’t – I had the wrong Todd.

This one is marked Mabie, Todd & Co., and the patent date imprinted is March 10, 1891 – that’s number 447,879, issued to John C.W. Jeffreys and George Dickman of London, England and assigned to George W. Mabie. That patent got past me when I wrote American Writing Instrument Patents 1799-1910; it wasn’t filed in any of the usual patent categories for pens and pencils, but in Class 63, “Jewelry,” subclass 22, “Bar: Devices comprising means to be passed through a buttonhole to secure the chain to the clothing.”  See “Another Forgotten Corner at the Patent Office” (December 7, 2015: Volume 4, page 25).

Once I had the right maker in mind, it was easy finding that example I wrote about ten years ago, and another one with that same neat ribbed top.

This next one, if I remember right, came from Pete Kirby. It has a patent date I remembered:

I remembered having another one along these lines, too. Fortunately it was with a different pattern, and they do look very nice together:

And, I remembered the trick about these from the last time I wrote about them, in “Three Interesting Hicks Patents” (September 22, 2016: Volume 4, page 181). There’s something on the other end of that pencil, I thought . . . 

Well, there should be, anyway. The one I had in my collection is intact, with a nice John Holland No. 6 dip pen nib. The pencil part of the new addition works just fine, but the band that secured a dip pen nib has gone missing.

The next Victorian that came home from Chicago with me was this hard rubber example:

It is also a Hicks, but there isn’t a patent associated with this one.

What makes this one unusual is its large pencil mechanism, operated by a simple slider. By this time, in the 1870s or 1880s, the slider function was usually reserved for dip pen nibs, with pencils advanced by some sort of spiral or twist mechanism.

The fourth pencil in this group is another Mabie Todd, and with that fat front end where the nose comes out I knew exactly what it is:

The barrel imprint reads “Pat. Mar. 16, ‘75 / Mabie, Todd & Co. / 1664":

These have come up a couple times here over the years, in “Mabie’s Other Patent” (June 14, 2021: Volume 7, page 194) and “Something I Never Knew Was There” (November 30, 2016: Volume 4, page 276). The reference is to George Mabie’s patent number 160,924:

The nose pulls out of the barrel and reverses for the dip pen nib.

Usually these are much bigger than this example, which fits well with the ones that were pictured in David Moak’s book, Mabie in America. It’s in better shape than my other hard rubber example – and it’s in a different pattern, too.

The last of my Chicago finds will have to wait until tomorrow. As I poked around for more information about it, an amazing story emerged . . . and when I’m finished telling it, you are going to think I did this on purpose.

Motor City Highlights

The stories behind how these bits and trinkets find their way to me are sometimes as much fun as exploring the history of the objects themselves. Unfortunately, during the time I was off fooling around writing the Sheaffer and Eversharp books, many of these back stories have faded from my memory.

Janet and I were at the Detroit Pen Show last weekend, and I found a few interesting things to show you. Rather than lining them up at the end of the long queue of stuff I need to photograph, I thought I’d tell you about them now, while my memory is fresh.

Detroit was better attended and busier this year than it has been in recent years. Janet and I had two tables, and on Friday show organizer Dale Penkala stopped by to ask me how business was. Great, I replied – I’m losing all kinds of money. 

Dale looked concerned until I told him it’s a great show when I lose money on Friday: that’s what happens when I am so busy flitting around the room, talking to people, and buying things for my collection that I’m not minding my shop. Saturday, I told him, is when I stay at my table and make all of that money back. Funny . . . I sell so much more when I’m sitting there.

I added all five of these to my collection that Friday.

Michael Krut was responsible for corrupting my pencil collection with those two half-pencil, half-pen combos at the top, but I was a willing co-conspirator. Both have those distinctive, turned-up ball clips that place them squarely in the Edward Todd / William S. Hicks family:

The gold filled example is marked for Edward Todd, both imprinted on the barrel and with a nice number 3 Edward Todd nib:

Although the sterling silver one has no imprint on the barrel, it does have a nib marked “W.S. Hicks Sons,” and I don’t have any reason to attribute it to any other maker:

The example at center came from Jerry Rosenthal, and it might have started life out as another combination pen and pencil before someone had a better idea for it.

Instead of a pencil, this has a really weird metal piece on the end, the parts of which don’t budge. With that  end removed, there’s nothing but an empty space inside:

I’m recalling the “Presso” toilet powder dispenser from “Marveling at Last in Person” (September 10, 2025), but there’s no movement with that end piece to suggest that it dispenses anything. Neither would there be any reason to store leads in a fountain pen. Perhaps it was a pill container or something.

There is a Hicks hallmark on the end of the cap, and the curled end of the clip instead of a ball is unusual but not unprecedented for a Hicks:

The nib, however, is a generic 14k nib. 

What had me puzzled was that there is no lever on the barrel, leaving me to wonder what this thing might be. Unscrewing the section provided that answer: it is a cheap bulb filler.

That pen and pencil set shown at bottom in that first image were also from Michael Krut. I had to give chase, because I’ve only seen one other pencil like this one.

I had a devil of a time finding that gold one - I knew I had taken pictures of it, but since these are so unlike anything else Hicks produced, I ended up shooting it alongside a few other random things I had purchased at the Baltimore Show a few years ago.

From top in this picture are a solid gold Mabie Todd:

A solid gold Hicks:

A vermiel (gold fill over sterling) pencil made by Louis Tamis & Son:

And this one, which was owned by Bob Johnson. It too is vermiel:

I’ll admit I didn’t shoot Bob’s pencil on its own because at the time, I thought it was kind of ugly but I felt compelled to buy it . . . the same sense of obligation I feel whenever I wind up buying a beautifully ugly Parker-Eversharp. I’ve softened on that a bit now, since it looks so nice alongside Michael Krut’s sterling silver set.

Both the pen and pencil bear Hicks hallmarks . . . 

The nib is a correct W.S. Hicks sons nib:

And just like the example I got from Jerry Rosenthal, there’s no lever on this pen, either. It has that same bulb-filler mechanism inside.

As My Last Bastion Falls

Back in 2022, Larry Liebman was in Columbus for the Ohio Show, and he spent a night or two at our place so he could fully take in the museum. He did not come empty handed: Larry brought with him some of the pieces he has collected made by Louis Tamis & Son, the New York jeweler’s firm that made high quality writing instruments both on its own account as well as for luxury retailers such as Tiffany, Cartier and the like.

Larry collects these because he has a distant family connection to LT & Son - he’s tried to explain it to me, and I keep getting confused about who is twice or thrice removed. Most recently, I talked about that in  “Narrowing the Gap” (May 31, 2021: Volume 7, page 156). Larry snapped a few photos with his iPad in preparation of his visit to see what he should bring for better shots; this one was the one I couldn’t wait to lay my hands upon, even if only for a brief photo session:

Yes, it is solid gold - and a two-tone yellow and rose gold to boot.

I recreated this pattern for my Legendary Pencil Company Model 124, which I dubbed the “Trinity.” I wasn’t deifying Tamis’ work - the Trinity reference is rooted in the fact that this same sort of design was used by three distinct makers.

Here, Larry’s LT & Sons pencil is flanked by two examples in my collection. The top one is a magic pencil bearing a W.S. Hicks hallmark. It isn’t stamped very well, but you can make it out near where the pencil emerges:

The one at bottom is a later gold filled pencil made by Mabie Todd & Co. in the late 1930s. These frequently slip under the radar because the imprint is in the center of the pencil:

Now I have to correct something a little bit. On the Legendary Pencil Company’s website listing for the Model 124, I identified the trinity of father, son, and pencil ghost as Louis Tamis & Son, William S. Hicks, and Edward Todd & Co. – not Mabie Todd & Co.

At the time I came up with the Trinity name, I had forgotten about these later Mabie Todds . . . forgivable, I hope, since this was the only models Mabie Todd did in this pattern, while the other three used it with abandon on lots of different things. If it isn’t forgivable, I’d hedge and say we’ll call it three and a half, given the abnormally close relationship between Edward Todd and Hicks.

Mea culpa. Trinity sounds much better than “Foursome” or “Trinity-ish,” so we’ll just chalk up my mistake to brilliant marketing and move on to the other thing Larry wanted to be sure we photographed. 

This solid gold fountain pen has the typical turned-up ball clip used by Edward Todd, Hicks and Louis Tamis – but not by Mabie Todd (see, I knew there was a reason I left Mabie out of the equation). While I can probably rule out Edward Todd, which used a slightly smaller clip, it is a tossup as between the other two, since it isn’t marked for either. This one is marked only for Tiffany & Co.

While we were having fun playing with these things and I had all of my similar stuff out for manhandling, I took a better picture of my LT & Son watch pencil. I had noticed that in the last time I talked about it, I had used only the auction house picture – I think I was so excited to write about it that the article published before the pencil was in my hands. See “Tying In Tamis” (June 18, 2021: Volume 7, page 206):

Over the years, I’ve expressed my disdain for buying solid gold, since I value history more than metal and for the price I can buy more history if the gold is not pure. I’ve also had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about high-faluting names - yeah, I apologize for my recent comparison of Tiffany products to Buckeyes memorabilia and dog turds. For God’s sake, don’t get me started on “precious resins,” either – precious, my butt. At least all I got wrong in my marketing was a model name.

I do cry Uncle on Larry’s solid gold stuff. They are absolutely beautiful and in my opinion, worth more than the metal in them solely based on their artistic merit. I have surrendered myself to the fact that the reason the Tiffany name commands a premium is because the company has earned it.

I have, however, maintained my last bastion of resistance to those bamboo pencils, which are nearly always marked only for the luxury retailer that offered them. LT & Son was the last of the “trinity” to survive, and I believe LT & Son made most if not all of these. They come in pencils as well as ballpoints, and I last visited them in “Dr. Seested, I Presume . . .” (January 18, 2016: Volume 4, page 97). 

Vic Seested and I finally met in person at the DC Show that year, after months of email correspondence. He had brought a spread of Hicks, LT and the like for me to photograph, including his solid gold bamboo pencil, marked both LT & Son and Tiffany:

“Dang, again,” I wrote, “as in dang, that’s ugly, but I do appreciate the attraction to something so distinctive . . . every time I see one, I think to myself to hold one is to look like you have waaaaay too much money. Maybe that is what they were going for.”

I don’t think I was wrong.

Dan Schenkein has recently taken a liking to these metal bamboo figurals, too. Here are his two ballpoints and an LT-marked pencil.

I am gradually developing greater appreciation and fewer objections on principle to these. When my friend Chiaming Chen in Taiwan posted a picture of this Cartier-marked example – in real bamboo, not metal – I quickly jumped on the opportunity to obtain permission to use the images:

It has British 18k hallmarks on the nose, above the Cartier name:

My growing appreciation and waning objections to bamboo pencils finally hit critical mass when I quietly managed to find one of these up for myself. At last I had spotted my prey laying in the weeds, improperly described, and buried in with a bunch of unrelated junk, so I was able to scoop it up at a price I could swallow: 

It actually wasn’t laying too deep in the weeds: since it measures over six inches long, it was more like a giraffe hiding behind a telephone pole in the middle of an open field. Still, nobody else seemed to pick up on what it was. On one nose, it is stamped “Made in Italy” and “laminato oro,” meaning gold filled or plated:

The other end reveals which high-end retailer thought a six-inch, double ended piece of wood sticking out of one’s shirt pocket might be considered a status symbol in certain circles:

Gucci.