Making the Cut

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

The Imperial isn’t a brand that makes headlines very often.  I posted about a boxed set here during the first couple weeks of the blog, but I haven’t seen anything noteworthy about the brand since.  These three, however, were a little interesting:

The maroon and creamish grey one caught my eye because the clip is a little different, and it doesn’t have that little crown next to the name:

As for the other two, the black example is bandless and has a different, less metally nose - both indicators of wartime production - while the other example has a subtle difference in the clip: note that it doesn’t have a straight taper, but flares out a bit near the top:

An Imperial to be Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

This weekend is always a busy one, with family in town for the holiday and the Don Scott Antique Show starting tomorrow (more on that later).  We've got a full house, but things are still pretty quiet after playing euchre into the wee hours of the morning last night, so I've got a few minutes to post a nice find.

Those of you who are frequent flyers on ebay are probably familiar with the seller "speerbob," who in real life is my friend Robert Speerbrecher.  I've bought a lot of things from Bob over the years, and he's a very honest and reputable guy.  That doesn't mean, however, that we don't haggle, sometimes vigorously. When it comes to today's find, while we were in the midst of a good haggle someone else swooped in and hit the "buy it now" button, but Bob was willing to grant me the use of his picture. . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company