Quality, Variety, Rarity, and Obsolescence

Someone walked into the Ohio Pen Show a couple weeks ago with a bag full of stuff to show me. He was disappointed that I didn’t start peeling hundred dollar bills off for 1960s salesmen’s folders filled with sample-marked ballpoints and pencils.

“This is the kind of stuff I buy just to preserve for the day when somebody might care,” I told him. Eventually we did come to terms – I don’t think I was the first person to tell him that – and now that I’m home they still reside in a tote I haven’t opened since the show closed.

No, I’m not going to write about them today.

My point in telling you about that encounter is that some things that are run-of-the-mill and common today may be sought after years from now. While we don’t know what might interest collectors fifty years from now, we do know what makes collectors chase the vintage things we see at shows today – and those factors have remained relatively static through time. Collectors have always and will always flock to quality, variety, rarity and obsolescence.

The Kreisler is one of those brands that isn’t very collectible today – it didn’t surprise me to find a pristine boxed example in Michael Krut’s junk box, and they rarely cost more than a dollar or two when you find one today. As I look at them, though, I think the Kreisler has all the earmarks of something collectors will be hunting down in the future.

Those were the same thoughts that were rattling around in my head when this turned up at the Don Scott Antique Show a few years ago. I think it was only five dollars or so, and even at that price I hesitated . . . then the preservationist voice within me started in on that familiar mantra: document, document, document.

This Kreisler “Crown II” ballpoint and pencil set is better than any modern advertisers being pumped out by advertising specialty companies like 4imprint today. Both the pen and pencil are marked, as with yesterday’s example, in the center.

These have enameled medallions affixed to their tops advertising Dr. Pepper:

The outer box identifies this as the Crown II “Men’s Set,” Model 18901.

On the bottom of the box are date stamps from 1984, with handwritten numbers that may someday prove instructive for historians and collectors. As of today, I have no idea what they signify.

The ballpoint strongly resembles those made by Cross, but the top end of the refill is different, so they are not compatible.

The original refill inside is identified as the Kreisler “Kreiloy Point.”

What finally tipped the scales in favor of spending a measly five bucks on this set was the paperwork that came with it. The Kreisler Manufacturing Company was located at 9015 Bergentine Avenue in North Bergen, New Jersey – a city best known as the location where David Kahn, Inc. made the Wearever and other brands.

This one find adequately documents the Kreisler Men’s sets, but it begs the question . . . what might the Ladie’s sets have looked like? I can answer that, but I have no idea where this one came from or when:

The touch of hand engraving and color add some charm to this shorter example, and it too has soda pop cache.

If you are rolling your eyes that this blog would feature the lowly Kreisler, step back for a moment and consider the factors that make much older and equally obscure brands such crowd-pleasers among collectors today. The Kreisler is as well built as a Cross and better than nearly anything else made in the 1980s. Two different soda pop varieties, together with the invitation on the order sheet to customize the tops however a customer desired, suggests a deep well of varieties to chase. For every hundred Cross advertisers you might find, you’ll maybe see a single Kreisler. While some might consider their appearance a passé, bell-bottomed abomination, they capture a moment in writing instrument history that has passed us by.

Quality, variety, rarity, and obsolescence. Mark my words – the day will eventually come when today’s lowly Kreisler will become a grail find at pen shows in the future. You heard it here first.

But not yet. When I went to put my new Kreisler find from Michael Krut alongside its siblings, I couldn’t find them. Somewhere in some forgotten corner of the museum, my three Kreislers are being preserved – as I told my hapless seller at the Ohio Show, awaiting the day when someone cares.

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 . . .