A Tale of Two Clips

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 6, now on sale at The Legendary Lead Company.  I have just a few hard copies left of the first printing, available here, and an ebook version in pdf format is available for download here.

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In an inconspicuous bunch of pencils in an online auction, this guy could be seen peeking out between two nondescript bits of flea market fare:

I was hoping when it arrived that it would clean up nicely and that it would have an imprint for LeBoeuf on it somewhere . . . and one out of two isn’t bad.  That plastic just screams LeBoeuf, which was known for attractive celluloids with spectacular depth of color.  And yet, that clip . . . I just couldn’t remember that clip being used by the company, and there was no marking on the pencil anywhere.

So I posted a quick note on Facebook and received confirmation that yes, this is a later LeBoeuf – I had a desk pen some years ago that was also unmarked, except for the P on the nib for the company’s flagship line of pens, the “Pilgrim.”   At the DC show which followed, one of my pushers (reinde me who you are!) added a bit to my unmarked, later LeBoeuf fold with a grey ringtop:

If your initial reaction when you saw that clip was Eisenstadt, you’re in good company.  That’s certainly where the inspiration came from – I showed off an Eisenstadt pencil made by the Rex Manufacturing Company here at the blog very early on (The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 1, page 68):

Of course, the clip mountings are totally different, since this uses Rex’s patented clip.  For a better example, I do have one of the company’s pens, with their distinctive “backwards” levers (the tab of the lever faces towards the nib rather than the top of the pen):

OK, I’m showing off a little with that black and pearl Eisenstadt.  Most are black hard rubber, and these are really tough to find – but this is a pencil blog, right?

Note that Eisenstadt clips, in addition to being longer and more substantial, have the company’s logo of an E nestled within a carpenter’s square at the bottom.  However, the exact clip found on my LeBoeuf has an exact counterpart elsewhere in pencildom:

These are stamped “Good Service Fountain Pen Co. Chicago Ill.”

Good Service was a brand name used by Sears Roebuck & Co. on its lower quality pens and pencils – a step below the higher quality Diamond Medal and medium quality Webster brands.  In The Catalogue on page 82, I had suggested these were turned out by National Pen Products, which has widely been regarded as an error - Parker Pen Company was the likely manufacturer, (with, of course, Cross supplying the innards).  Of course, mixing and matching bits and pieces was a hallmark of National, and these have a little bit of everything in them: Parker's outsourced innards from Cross, celluloid reminiscent of that patented by Seth Crocker, a center band that looks more than a little like what is found on some Moores . . .

and clips from a late-model LeBoeuf.  Richard Binder’s Glossopedia reports that LeBoeuf filed for bankruptcy in 1933, and the LeBoeuf-Pilgrim Pen Company, Inc. came later.  Which came first?  I’m sure there will be a follow up article when I figure that out.

Thoughts Regarding a Few Connections

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; 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.

I’ve had this one laying around for a long time, trying to make some sense out of it:

The celluloid has some great depth, and the clip is marked “Deluxe” in a nice, Old-English style script:

It is clearly from the same product lines as the Gold Bond.  Here it is alongside two examples, one in almost the same (but not quite as “deluxe”) color, and another sporting that same clip.  Note that the Deluxe has an extra trim band at the top, and all three have that black top piece with some nice detailing traditionally attributed to C.E. Barrett and National Pen Products:

However, the evidence I pieced together suggests that if these weren’t made by Rex, who clearly made earlier models of the Gold Bond, they might have been made by Sheaffer, which appears to have very quietly turned out Gold Bonds before later models were introduced which were clearly rebadged Eversharps and Watermans:

(For the whole scoop on that story, start with http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/08/maybe-big-three-out-of-four.html . . . from there, you can hop back to the first part of that series).

Now let’s turn the conversation up a notch:

Note that same black end with detailing at the top end?  These are essentially thinner versions of the Gold Bond, with different clips.  Two of these pencils – the longer ones – are ones you are probably familiar with.   They are imprinted “The Monogram Pen / Unbreakable / Sold Only at the Rexall Store.”  But that shorter one – like the Deluxe, with an extra trim ring at the top, says something entirely different:

The Joseph Lipic Pen Company of St. Louis.

I don’t know what all of this means.  Lipic clearly made some pens and pencils, but the company may also have acquired product for a short time from Sheaffer, Rex or whomever was turning out Monogram Pens.  As for Rexall, the United Drug Co. acquired product from DeWitt-LaFrance (remember the Signet?) as well as from Moore and Eagle, so it’s entirely possible to throw Rex or Sheaffer into the mix.

Chalk this article up as throwing out one piece to a giant puzzle and hoping someday I figure out at least which puzzle it’s supposed to fit in.

What About the Boogeyman?

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3; 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.

Note: this is the third installment in a series of articles.  To start from the beginning, see http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/06/nailed-it-pretty-much.html.

I know I’m bucking pen lore when I talk about the Rex Manufacturing Company in connection with names like Blue Ribbon, Webster, Gold Bond . . . all of which are traditionally associated with C.E. Barrett and National Pen Products of Chicago.   Late last year I posted a couple of articles on National, exploring the history of the company and presenting evidence that National Pen Products was actually a Montgomery Ward subsidiary set up in late 1922 for the purpose of supplying writing instruments to Ward.

The articles can be found at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/11/out-of-shadows.html and http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/11/help-with-cheese.html.

Why would Montgomery Ward feel the need to do that?  The answer is simple: nobody wanted to be too close to Clarence E. Barrett at the time National Pen Products was formed.  In 1914, Walter Sheaffer named Barrett as the lead defendant in his landmark case against his former business associates George Kraker and Harvey Craig, alleging that Barrett had supplied parts to Kraker which infringed Sheaffer’s patent.  The case was finally decided in Sheaffer’s favor in 1918, and Barrett was lucky to survive in the business - Kraker and Craig did not.

Even if Clarence E. Barrett was a master salesman and a nice guy with whom you might want to do business, after what happened to those who bought parts from him in the Kraker fiasco, who in their right mind would want to risk buying anything from him just four years later, in 1922?

After I published my last posts about National, I stumbled across an additional detail that suggests that Montgomery Ward was interested in buying from Barrett, but only so long as there was enough space between them to ensure that Montgomery Ward wouldn’t become entangled in any future problems Barrett might encounter.   As I mentioned in the previous article, the incorporators of National Pen Products were Montgomery Ward manager E.P. Marum, a 23-year-old World War I veteran named Ralph M. Prouty, and “Bernice C. O’Neill.”  As to Bernice, I could find nothing other than her name in the announcement I found in The American Stationer.

That was because The American Stationer misspelled her name.

As I was continuing to research Barrett’s role in the world of writing instruments, I stumbled across his listing in the 1940 United States Census.  Living in his house were his wife Miriam, a daughter, and a sister in law: Berenice O’Neill, who was listed as 33 years old.

If she was 33 in 1940, she would only have been 15 years old in 1922.  I don’t think the age is right; I believe she was actually 38.  I tunneled a little deeper, and a Berenice C. O’Neill is listed in the 1920 Census – that’s her maiden name, not her married name, and she was 19 at the time.   There’s no sister named Miriam listed in the census, but by then, Miriam was married to Clarence and wouldn’t have been a member of that household.  Miriam’s maiden name was – you guessed it -- O’Neill.

Although the details are a little fuzzy, this can’t be a coincidence.  Berenice O’Neill was  Clarence E. Barrett’s sister in law, suggesting that National Pen Products was a partnership between Montgomery Ward and the capable but recently disgraced Clarence E. Barrett.

Montgomery Ward wasn’t taking any chances with National, which supplied only pencils that were already patented and manufactured – by the Rex Manufacturing Company.  Webster, Blue Ribbon – and yes, Virginia, even the venerable Lincoln Pen had a companion pencil which hailed from Providence:

This ringtop surfaced in an online auction, and there’s no mistaking its pedigree:

McNary’s 1924 patent date is stamped on the barrel.

Help with the Cheese

Note: this is the third article in a series, which began at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/11/before-lone-horseman.html.

Carol Strain only comes to two shows each year – Chicago and Ohio. Until a few years ago, most of us knew her as the purple lady, since she is ever dressed in her favorite color.   A couple years ago, that reputation was eclipsed by one of Carol’s other passions: she’s become for many of us "the cheese lady."

A few shows ago, Carol brought a couple chunks of quality cheese to one our late night scotch-and-cigar sociables.  I believe that first time she did so, the collective amount of liquid appetizers the group had consumed made us a voracious bunch, and we quickly gobbled down everything she brought.   Ever since, her contributions have steadily increased, and these days she comes fully prepared with cutting boards, knives, crackers and yes . . . lots of cheese.

This year, as a bunch of us hung around and talked at the hotel bar Saturday night at the Ohio Show, Carol’s presence in our midst made it inevitable that the conversation was destined to turn to . . . cheese.  At long last (none of us were trying to look to anxious about it), Carol announced it was time.   Given the rate at which Carol’s portable buffet has grown, I calculated that it would be physically impossible for Carol to bring everything down in one trip (unless she had added a wagon and a few mules to the production since last May).  So I offered to help her bring the cheese down from her room, an offer which she was glad to accept.

At her room, while Carol fished bag after bag of cheese from the refrigerator, I noticed a boxed pen set sitting on the desk, and I momentarily forgot the mission at hand.   Like a moth to the flame and with a "oooo, what’s that," I paused to open the box to see what was inside. I then had to see what was inside what was inside. And once I did, I had an answer I’ve been trying to find. For years.

I asked Carol if the set was hers, and she said she was thinking about buying it. I said (1) she had to and (2) she had to let me photograph it. She did both.

Here’s Carol’s set, on the right, shown next to the Blue Ribbon set I had found just a day earlier (see yesterday’s article):

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Out of the Shadows

Note:  this is the second part in a series of articles which began with http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/11/before-lone-horseman.html.

Thursday trading at the Ohio Pen Show this year was insane. There was a lot going on in that room, so much so that I don’t remember who sold me this great set:

This is a "Blue Ribbon" set, with the clip on the pencil so marked, but the pen has a floral design on the clip . . .

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 3, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.