Zen and the Art of Picking

After David Nishimura and I finished negotiating the purchase of a Victorian collection from Rob Bader in DC, Rob mentioned that he had a few other random pencils that had come from that same collection. Since we bought everything else, Rob said, take whatever you want out of them.

I wasn’t greedy, but I did grab a couple items that are perennial favorites to me, including these four:

First is that cute little Gordon, with its telephone dialer and hugely disproportionate “fanged” clip. Even if I had five identical ones at home I would have snagged this one – the color is amazing, the telephone dialer ones are a delight, and besides – it was “free” (ish, he tells himself, after the amount of money he spent on the Victorians).

The clip didn’t look nearly this nice when I rescued it, and there was a lot of work involved in getting it looking presentable. The effort was worth it, because this scratched one of those longtime itches I’d forgotten I had.

In “Like Playing the Lottery” (March 7, 2013: Volume 2, page 83), I mused whether a two-tone Gordon was correct. “It’s possible that Gordon decided to jazz things up a bit by making two-color pencils out of parts from each,” I wrote, “but if anyone’s got a red veined example with a bronze and cream cap and wants to swap parts, I’m all ears!”

Now I’m all ears for an all red veined example. And it continues . . . 

That was happy accident number one from Rob’s freebie pile. Here’s number two:

I like these later Moore “Mastercraft” pencils, and I figured since I probably already had one, I wouldn’t mind carrying this one around as an everyday doodler (and besides, I told myself, it’s “free”).

And then I checked my photo archive . . .

I couldn’t have called a better shot.

That blue “Hiriter” is another one I wouldn’t have thought twice about if there was more money to be paid. Hiriter was a David Kahn brand (Kahn is best known as maker of the Wearever), although I don’t know if the Hiriter was for Kahn’s own account or whether it was supplied to some retailer. It wasn’t a high quality affair, but still – I liked the clip and the color, and when I got it home:

Now I have one that has all of its parts.

As for the last one in this group, it is a Dur-O-Lite and one of the earliest ones, at that. The company was founded in 1926, and that square bolt securing the clip to the barrel was only used until 1928. It isn’t the earliest, but it’s pretty early – that longer nose was adopted in early 1927.

I was sure I had one, but I’m a sucker for these and if I run across one that needs a clip or a good nose, I figured it would be handy to have. Besides . . . its free . . . and yes, I did have one.

But the one I have didn’t have this written on the side, which I didn’t notice when I plucked it from the pile to bring home:

I’m confident that if I had actually spent additional money on these things, I would never have batted four for four!

A Second Bounce

That hard rubber “Varsity” pencil made by the Moore Pen Company from the other day is what got me thinking about these again. The page I showed from Moore’s 1925 catalog divides black hard rubber pencils into two categories: “Varsity,” which had no trim bands, and “Colonial,” which did:

The Varsity is identified as Model 190 in the longer version with a side clip, or as Model 290 in a short ringtop, and both are shown in the catalog with a wavy chased pattern resembling Waterman’s “Rickrack” pattern. Unlike the metal pencils, though, the 190/290 designation appears to have broadly been applied to all chasing patterns, since the hard rubber pencil I showed earlier had a Model 190 price band but a “Ribbon” (that was what Moore called it, just like Wahl did) engraved pattern:

I do have a couple Model 190 Varsity pencils in the pattern matching what is illustrated in the catalog:

The yellow dot is there to remind me that one recently came in from Jennifer Heath, I believe at the Ohio Show in 2024. I scooped it up because it was cheap, but I decided to keep it because there is a subtle difference between them:

One has “Moore” imprinted on the hard rubber, and the other has it stamped on the metal above . . . and neither one shows any patent dates. My theory – which I don’t want to test because it involves destroying a perfectly good pencil – is that the patent date on both is obscured by the hard rubber overlay. 

That same sort of variation occurs on the ringtop models, too:

I have found these in plain barrels, that rickrack-ish pattern, and in Ribbon - note that the top example has a Model 290 price band, consistent with the catalog. The 1925 patent example at bottom is beyond repair, but since there is no good way to disassemble these to see what’s going on inside, I’ve kept it to show the unusual square piece that drives the mechanism:

In the ringtops, my theory that there’s a patent date hidden under that hard rubber makes even more sense:

In fact, I’m wondering whether the 1922 patent dates were deliberately obscured. Maybe these are 1925 mechanisms inside barrels marked with the 1922 patent date, and Moore decided to cover over the 1922 date already stamped on a stock of barrels rather than throw them out; then after the 1925 patent was issued, that information was added to the hard rubber imprints.

It’s just a theory.

As for the “Colonial” Moore pencils – hard rubber, but with various configurations of trim bands described unimaginatively in the 1925 catalog, Here are the two ringtops in my collection:

Neither of these is exactly what is shown in the catalog. A full-length version of the one with a wide band, is illustrated as Model 140, but with a smooth barrel and described only as a Colonial with a wide band; if Moore was consistent across the Varsity and Colonial lines, an example with that rickrackish chasing would have the same model designation, but in a short ringtop it would be Model 240. The one with two bands is illustrated as Model 262, but with the rickrackish chasing while mine is smooth. It was called – you guessed it – Colonial with 2 bands.

Although the catalog page I’ve been discussing lists only the Varsity and Colonial lines, there were other interesting configurations that I have not yet discussed. That last image was an excerpt from a larger photo, in which these others appear:

The four examples at the top with colored bands were called the “Luxor” on page 19 of the catalog:

Those with green bands were Model 280, Model 281 with a red band, and Model 282 with the blue. The longer versions I don’t have, but their model numbers were 180, 181, and 182.

Last but not least is the one most people know by name: the red hard rubber “Tuscan,” Model 177 in full size with clip, Model 277 in the short ringtop. In that department, I do have a full-sized version, and two ringtops, the second of which came in along with a collection I purchased at the DC show this year. I’ve also managed to turn up a fountain pen, a bit worse for wear but worth including here:

As with other models, there is variation in how long the hard rubber overlay was made; I believe the longer the overlay, the later the pencil. Note here that the shorter overlay here bears the 1922 patent and the longer one has the 1925 patent date.

Note that in all the illustrations from Moore’s 1925 catalog, all of these have overlays which are wider than the gold-filled portions underneath. Nowhere is the 1925 patent example in blue celluloid with white rings shown, because it likely was made after the 1925 catalog was printed:

Unfortunately, stodgy ol’ Moore only illustrated chased hard rubber pens in its newspaper advertisements even through 1927, long after I am assuming production of celluloid-barrel pens and pencils entered production. Here are two examples in jade, which I had photographed to highlight one details in the celluloid series:

Both of these have Liddell’s 1925 patent date on the barrels, and note that like the blue example, the colored material is flush with the metal. In the celluloid series (not really the best name, because there were also plain red hard rubber examples like this), sometimes these have an extra metal section where the celluloid ends:

My theory, in the absence of catalogs later than 1925, is that those with the extra metal section are earlier, a vestigial reminder of the hard rubber pencils that came earlier. 

But again, that is just a theory. This is the point where I expect the peanut gallery to say “Challenge . . . accepted” and prove me right or wrong.

First Bounce on the Diving Board

 A couple days ago, as I discussed that new old stock Moore pencil I recently acquired from Gabriel Galecia Goldsmith, I mentioned that I’d be circling back around to the Moore Pen Company’s products. During my long hiatus, I had shot images of my entire Moore collection, planning a “deep dive” into the subject when I returned.

The full deep dive will have to wait a bit, since I need to reshoot several of the images    . . . new finds keep arriving, and I’d rather include everything when I get around to discussing those models; however, in the early Moore department – the metal and hard rubber ones – I haven’t found anything new since I shot that last round of images and, in light of that 1925 catalog in the PCA library, I am now itching to tell you about them. On page 21, Moore’s metal pencils are on display, complete with enough model numbers to piece together Moore’s entire numbering system.

One of my favorite non-Sheaffer, non-Eversharp images I took while I wrote the books on those two subjects is this one, featuring my gold filled Moore ringtop pencils:

The catalog doesn’t include every variation, but by comparing the designations of what is listed, you can extrapolate model numbers for all the different sizes, models, and materials.

First digit: size. 1 for full size with clip, 2 for ringtop.

Second digit: metal content. 0 for silver nickel, 1 for sterling, 2 for gold fill, 3 for 18k gold fill, 5 for solid 14k green gold, and 8 for white gold filled.

Third digit: pattern. With that information in hand, here are the formal names and model designations of the above:  

1. Plain (not listed on the metal pencils page, but unadorned fountain pens elsewhere are called “Plain” when unadorned). Plain fountain pens in the catalog have a common denominator of the number 2 for the Plain, so I think this was Model 222. 

2. "Pyramid" – Model 225.

3. "Lotus" – in white gold filled, this is listed as Model 283, so I’m betting in gold fill as shown here this is Model 223.

4. "Grotesque" – seriously, what was Moore’s marketing department thinking with that name, other than perhaps “I really hate this pattern”?? This is listed as Model 230.

5. “Trojan” - in full length, solid 14k green gold this was listed as Model 156, so I think this would have been Model 226. 

6. “Pilgrim” - Model 227 as listed.

Not shown here nor in the 1925 catalog is the “Ribbon” pattern - the common denominator among fountain pens listed in Ribbon is the number 4, so I’m betting – assuming they were made and I’ve just not had luck finding one – that the model number would be 224. I didn’t shoot the silver-colored Moore ringtops, because I have only two: a “Grotesque” in sterling (Model 210, by my calculations) and a plain nickel-silver example (which should be Model 202). 

In my experience, Moore’s ringtop metal pencils are much easier to find than than their full-sized counterparts with clips. I’ve only turned up four over the years:

From top, these would be Model 122 (full length, gold filled, Plain), Model 112 (full length, sterling, Plain), Model 114 (full length, sterling, Ribbon) and Model 134 (full length, 18k gold filled, Ribbon).

Note the ill-fitting cap on the bottom example. Maybe it is a replacement, but I haven’t changed it: it’s the earliest example I’ve found, predating the 1925 catalog by three years or so:

“Pat. Pend.” so this example was made sometime before late 1921 (assuming the barrels were promptly updated with the patent date after it was issued).  Pencils made by Moore were covered by two patents, the first of which was applied for by John G. Liddell on December 14, 1921 Liddell’s patent was granted on August 15, 1922 as patent number 1,425,871.

Liddell improved his design and filed a second patent application on May 10, 1924, which was issued on October 13, 1925 as patent number 1,556,701:

The vast majority of these metal pencils were covered by Liddell’s 1922 patent; out of all of the examples in my collection, only one – the nickel silver plain ringtop – has the 1925 patent date. Nearly all were made after the 1922 patent was issued: only three of mine are marked “Pat. Pend.” 

The hard rubber pencils, however, are a different story. They are marked sometimes with the 1922 or the 1925 patent date . . . and they came in a fun range of variations. That story tomorrow . . . 

Gabriel's Lot

In yesterday’s installment, I intended to tell you about all of the boxed pencils that Gabriel Galecia Goldsmith parted with:

The back story and the added discussion about Dunn Pen and Pencil, Inc. was more involved than I thought it was going to be when I sat down to write the article, so I decided to take a break and revisit the rest of them in a second installment. Each of these has significant “charm,” as Dr. Isaacson likes to say, starting with a brand near and dear to the good Doctor’s heart:

The lettering on the box lid is significantly worn, but I don’t care: “Sharp Point Pencil,” it reads, accompanied by a picture of a hand holding a pen.

The Sharp Point was the first pencil offered by the W.A. Sheaffer Pen Company, as detailed in Chapter One of my 2023 book, A Field Guide to Sheaffer’s Pencils. The Sharp Point was introduced in 1917 and the name was phased out in 1921. Due to mechanical problems with the pencil, Sheaffer offered to take back Sharp Point pencils in exchange for a free propel-repel-expel pencil in 1924, leaving precious few of these out there.

This example has what I call a “bowler clip” due to its shape, the second clip used on Sharp Point pencils introduced in 1918 and replaced by the familiar “Sheaffer’s” ball clip in 1919. Most with a bell cap have  Walter Sheaffer’s patent date of November 5, 1918 imprinted on them, as this one does:

As rare as Sharp Point pencils are, that wasn’t what had me jazzed about this example: after all, I have several examples with the combination of “bowler clips” and bell tops, as shown on page 9 of the book. I was grateful for the opportunity to catch up with Pat Mohan a bit:

Pat was a member of my “dream team” of advisers who helped me with the Sheaffer book; since I did not have a 14k Sharp Point, he was kind to contribute an image of his examples, which appear at the bottom of page 11. Early Sharp Point model designations were a two-letter code: A for silver plated, B for sterling, C for gold filled, and D for solid gold. The second letter denoted the pattern, with the letter A denoting a plain barrel. That makes this a model DA Sharp Point made in 1918 or early 1919, identical to Pat’s example as shown in the book.

Yeah, I always say I’m just as happy to have a picture as I am owning an example. Sometimes I lie a little.

The next example in this group is a very mint Moore hard rubber pencil:

This is a really pristine example of Moore’s 1925 patent pencils, and the price tag identifying it as Model 190, retailing for $1.50, sent me straight to the Pen Collectors of America’s online library:

The PCA has Moore’s 1925 catalog available, in which there is a page dedicated to the company’s hard rubber pencils.

On the left is model 190, with a price tag of $1.50 – just like my pencil – but notice that my example has groups of vertical lines (Eversharp referred to that pattern as “ribbon,” but Moore probably called it something else) while the catalog illustrates a wavy design Waterman called “rickrack” (again, Moore probably called it something else).  Judging from the catalog, Moore referred to any pencil lacking trim bands along these lines as a Model 190 “Varsity” (Model 290 in ringtop configuration), while everything else was the “Colonial” (not to be confused with Eversharp’s “Colonial” pattern which, of course, Moore called something else).

I’ll circle back to Moore soon - there’s a lot more to delve into on the subject.

Next is something I had to have, just because I’ve never seen a box for one:

I can’t rule out the possibility that maybe one flew right past my head at some point, because it is very difficult to read the printing with that blue background. It is a LeBoeuf “Unbreakable” ringtop pencil, and if you know what that box lid is supposed to say, you can find the words:

“Unbreakable” surrounded by “LeBoeuf Fountain Pen Company, Springfield Massachusetts.” On the end of the box is an interesting sticker marked “NY.” I don’t know if it means this was part of a lot destined for sale in New York, or if it was a model designation, or if it was something else:

I fibbed a bit earlier - there were two reasons I had to have it. While I do have another example (it was pictured here in “The Silent Cue” alongside a Keeran Pencil on August 9), if you look closely at the image of that one you’ll see the cracking that is fairly common on these.

Unbreakable, my butt. This new example, however, is clean. I’m not sure that string is a factory addition, but I see no harm in leaving it intact for now.

Sigh . . . this always happens. Yesterday I thought I would be doing a brief show and tell, introducing some neat new old stock pencils in their original boxes. Today, I thought I’d finish the job, but there’s one last one in this group to tell you about. It opens so many cans of worms that I’ll be back tomorrow to unpack all the information it provides.

The Case for Cases

Ringtop pens and pencils made by the Carter Ink Company during the 1920s and 1930s are a relatively common sight. Sets housed in celluloid cases, while less common, do show up from time to time. The earlier ones were rectangular:

When these sets are reasonably priced, I’ll bite on them just for the cases, even if I might have the pencil at home. That lower one came as a nice surprise: the Coralite (Carter’s name for this sort of celluloid) was in very good condition:

And, when I checked to see if I had the pencil, I only had half of one. I’ve been looking (whether I remembered it or not) for a complete example to upgrade the one I have missing its cap:

At some point during production, the squared-off corners on the cases were streamlined. I believe this change occurred before Carter streamlined the pens and pencils themselves, since this next case looks too well put together. 

It came from the collection of Terry Johnson, who founded Private Reserve Inks, and it came to me through the Kennedys (Mike and Linda) - I had passed on it when I purchased the pencil part of the Johnson collection, but that gorgeous monogram on the case nagged at me . . . after the big purchase, I messaged Linda and arranged for her to bring it along to the Baltimore show in March.

The “streamlined” cases are sometimes found with the Carter’s name embossed inside the lid: this later set (mid-1930s) also came from Terry Johnson’s collection. The pen and pencil are worse for wear, but to me the case was what was important, anyway:

I have another streamlined case with that same treatment inside the lid. It too contains a later incarnation of the pen:

My favorite Carter’s case, however, is a little bit earlier, dating to 1929 or 1930. It lacks the Carter’s name, but has so much more going for it:

Larry Liebman also likes these – every so often, we get on the phone and have a text fest, sending pictures back and forth while we discuss different brands. When the subject of Carter’s came up a few months ago, he sent me this picture of something along these lines, in lapis celluloid with similar painting:

All of the foregoing is cool show and tell, but other than those last two cases, all of these are probably things with which most collectors are well familiar. And then comes the rest of the story . . . 

In an online discussion in one of the pen groups on Facebook, David Nishimura mentioned that these celluloid cases were supplied to Carter by some unknown third party, and that other companies were also known to have offered them.

Dang it, I thought to myself . . . from now on, I’m going to have to open every stinking one of these cases that I see, and I will not be able to assume any non-Carter contents that happen to reside in them are just later random additions. And then, just a couple of weeks after that discussion, Matt McColm pointed out something in an online auction he thought might interest me:

Opening the case reveals no name inside the lid, but that gold-filled pencil cap is no Carter:

Yes, Virginia, that’s a set made by the Moore Pen Company – the pen is a bit discolored, but what the heck – it has a price sticker.

But that isn’t the reason I clicked “buy it now” quicker than a jackrabbit on a date. It was what is inside the case, not inside the lid like on a Carter’s case but in the case body:

Non-Carter’s cases like these are so rare that most are not even aware that they exists - I took mine to the recent DC Show to share with a couple Moore fanatics I know . . . one had never seen such a thing, and the other had only heard that they exist. It does makes sense that two Boston pen companies would both source celluloid cases from the same supplier, and I supose that likely does narrow down who that supplier might have been to some manufacturer in the Northeast. LeBoeuf, in nearby Springfield, immediately comes to mind.

This is one of those articles I publish in the hopes that it will drag out more information. Actually, all of my articles are published in those hopes, but this time the questions I am trying to answer are very pointed: what other companies offered these, who made them . . .

. . . and David mentioned in that online discussion that there are also cases with three compartments rather than two . . .