My only complaint about the DC Supershow, held every August, is that so many of my friends are there that it is a challenge finding more than a few minutes to talk with each of them. Things only slow down to a reasonable pace on Sunday, by which time everyone is so thoroughly exhausted and “peopled” out that we are collectively ready to return to our normal, quirky lives.
I don’t even bother to set up on Thursday, so I can see everyone and share things we brought to show each other; I’ll typically have a backpack containing only a case of things I brought to show people and a bottle of Jameson’s. Both are typically empty by the time festivities end on that first day.
As I wandered about the room, my old friend R. George Adams flagged me down. R. George, you may recall, found that weird Stylofede pencil for me (see “The Pencil and the Tramp” on August 5, 2025), and he’s got a great eye for the unusual and the weird.
This time, R. George wanted to offer me some wonderful pieces out of his collection of Carter’s pens and pencils. Two of his fountain pens enamored me; usually, I’m too cheap to spend big money on fountain pens, particularly in the first few minutes after I arrive at a show, but I was unable to resist these.
At the time, I assumed one of these was a duplicate of the DeLaCo example from yesterday’s article because I couldn’t remember what the imprint read. I didn’t mind adding a complete and intact example, even if it proved to be a duplicate, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got home:
Yesterday’s DeLaCo pen is now in the company of identical pens marked Superite (DeWitt-LaFrance’s later flagship brand) and Laughlin, of Detroit, Michigan. As for the nibs, the Superite has one of those “S” marked nibs I was telling you about yesterday, and the Laughlin has a number 5 size Snapfil nib.
That Snapfil is an unusual nib, typically found on the General Manufacturing and Houston Pen Company’s Snapfil lines of fountain pens (General Manufacturing also produced those grail “Kaligraf” pencils). By the time these were made, around 1920, Laughlin was sourcing pens rather than making them; I don’t know whether the company sourced nibs and pens separately and put them together or whether this is a random replacement.
R.George had a few pencils to show me, too. They are the four examples in the middle of this next image:
Before I get to R. George’s pencils, a word about that black hard rubber example at top. It is one of the earliest of the Carter-branded pencils, a rebadged version of the hard rubber Superite pencils. The Carter Ink Company purchased DeWitt-LaFrance in 1925, but I wouldn’t discount the possibility that Carter’s was sourcing pens and pencils from DeWitt-LaFrance before the sale.
This one came to me from an online auction that closed shortly after I got home from the DC show – it’s a duplicate that’s both an upgrade in one respect and a downgrade in another:
My other black hard rubber example has badly discolored hard rubber and corroded trim . . . but it has a price sticker. Both of my black hard rubber examples have groups of lines on the barrel. DeWitt-LaFrance made identical pencils for the Rexall Drug Stores under the “Signet” line; Signet pencils had gold filled trim, and the black hard rubber ones came either with or without those groups of lines. See “Chasing and Fixing Signets” (July 8, 2021: Volume 7, page 246).
All but one of these Carter’s pencils have nickel trim rather than gold-filled, but the existence of that red hard rubber Carter with gold filled trim suggests that there’s no reason all of these others might also come with that trim . . . and the Signet line was also offered in mottled hard rubber, too.
The first of the four Carter’s pencils that came from R. George is that great pink and white oversized pencil; these were student or utility models, I believe, and to my knowledge there were no comparable fountain pens. With an exposed eraser, I’ve only found these in black or red hard rubber, and the crown tops found on these student models are unique to this series.
I wrote about that blue one during the first year of the blog – see “If Only All ‘Student Pencils’ Were This Nice!” (March 30, 2012: Volume 1, page 159). While larger, these are also lighter since it’s a thinner plastic barrel rather than the more hefty Coralite or hard rubber.
The second R. George Special was that Pearltex pencil in blue . . . or blueish, anyway. Pearltex shades vary from one pencil to the next and no, that’s not discoloration, which comes from exposure to rubber ink sacs, ink, or a combination of the two, something that typically doesn’t plague pencils. When I bought it, I had checked my notes, and I thought this one would fit nicely into my collection, which included what I thought was a short grey and the short and long models in blue. However, when I got them all together under the strong lights in my photo setup, it isn’t so clear.
My “gray” ringtop looks more pink, and the “blue” ringtop looks more gray. Colors on the Pearltex series are so often a matter of degree, though, and in this case I’m just content that R. George’s addition is clearly different from what was already represented in this series.
The third R. George Memorial Carter is in lapis Coraltex – it’s very close to a model I recently wrote about in “Duly Twisted” (October 2, 2025). In that earlier article, I noted that I already had three Lapis Carter pencils, but this one is a variation I didn’t have:
Carter pencils with a single band at the top are earlier; Carter’s fountain pens are shown with a single wide cap band in newspaper advertisements from 1926 through mid-1928, while advertisements beginning in late 1928 illustrate double cap bands like these. While these advertisements do not show the matching pencils, I don’t believe it is a stretch to say that the banding on the pencils matched fountain pens made at the same time.
The two white Pearltex examples at the bottom are a story all their own: the oversized model was the fourth R. George Special from the DC Show, and Terry Mawhorter had the ringtop. I was happy and a little irritated at the same time to find these, because I had to reshoot a picture that was a real pain in the neck to stage. Here’s the original image, taken to commemorate the addition of a ringtop identical to the one I got from Terry:
This shows Carter models in white Pearltex, which evolved on a slightly different track from the same pencils in other colors. The top three examples are not a match for any other Carter’s pens or pencils of the era.
I had planned an article months ago about why streamlined ringtops in white Pearltex have a single trim bands at the top, while all the other colors have twin bands.
Later versions in white Pearltex match the same models in other colors . . . mostly. The last of the full-length Carter pencils blended elements from the flattop series with the cheaper Carter products made in the 1930s.
Carter eventually abandoned the distinctive LaFrance clip; these later models sport very unusual colors, but I haven't found one in white Pearltex.
Later Carter ringtops are unmarked and were not made in as wide a range of colors, but the distinctive Pearltex and trim are unmistakable. Note the shorter caps on the grey models – this is too small a sampling to draw any conclusions, other than that there were two different cap lengths.
During those sad last days of Carter’s writing instrument production, not even the side clip models were marked with the Carter’s name.
In fact, it wasn’t until 2018 that I was able to confirm that these were made by the company, established by indirect means in “Settles the Issue in My Mind” (February 25, 2018: Volume 5, page 164) and from scant newspaper advertisements in “Chapter and Verse” (October 9, 2018: Volume 5, page 263). Formal confirmation arrived after I acquired a 1931 (or so) Carter catalog from Rob Bader (see “The Inconvenient Question” on June 12, 2021: Volume 7, page 190).
As Carter’s Ink Company prepared to throw in the towel with the production of writing instruments some time in the early 1930s, there were some final modifications – or debasements, depending on how you view it – to the designs, including the addition of a standard black and pearl to the lineup and the deletion of the domed tops.
I haven’t yet found a flat top Carter pencil like this in any Pearltex color. If I do, however, I’ll be reshooting that white Pearltex spread yet again.
