All the King's Horsemen, Part Two

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Now to circle back to one of “Specialty King” James Kelley’s advertisements, in which he advertised the “gothic” “Keystone Banker” in 1932.  

There was a trademark filed for the Keystone name, but it was registered by Alfred Berolzheimer on behalf of the Blaisdell Pencil Company.  Berolzheimer claimed that Blaisdell had been using the mark since January 1, 1911, and he applied for registration on October 27, 1921:

I’ve always thought that the trademark was problematic, since the Keystone pencils I have don’t bear any strong resemblance to Eagle products (Blaisdell was a subsidiary of Eagle by this point); if anything, they look more like they were supplied by David Kahn, Inc.  

Then there’s the logo above the word: a K within a Keystone shape most of the time (one has the K within a diamond):

I’ve wondered whether that K stood for Keystone . . . but that seems a bit redundant.  Kahn?  These look more like David Kahn products, but they aren’t exactly the same . . . and besides, known David Kahn brands have DK in a circle, not just the letter K.  

Since Kelley had also “lifted” the Banker and Master names after the previous incarnation of the Bankers’ Pen Company had given it up, and he referred to his “gothic” Bankers as “Keystone Bankers,” I suspect the K on Keystone pens and pencils stood for James Kelley.  Once again, Kelley appeared to be appropriating an abandoned name – there was a “Keystone Fountain Pen Company” advertising pens during the teens and early 1920s, using many of the same shenanigans Kelley would later employ.  One was advertised in The Bourbon News (Paris, Kentucky) on April 20, 1917:

Keystone is no longer listed in the 1922-1923 New York directory, and advertising halts for this incarnation of the Keystone in 1925; four years later, the Keystone name was revived – apparently by James Kelley – and he would drag yet another third tier brand into the mix.

Classified advertisements for “cheap new” Keystone pen and pencil sets appear in Pomona, California beginning in April, 1929 - at 225 N. Rebecca, a single-family residence.  These notices began on April 26, 1929 in The Pomona Progress Bulletin:

Beginning in November 1929, advertisements very similar to those hawking Banker and Waterson pens and pencils begin appearing in drugstore advertisements in Los Angeles, a $11.50 set selling for just $1.50.  This one appeared in the Modesto (California) News-Herald on December 11, 1929 . . .

. . . and it was identified as a product of the “Packard Pen Company.”  Packard is a name that makes collectors shudder – later examples are some of the ugliest pens and pencils in pen(cil)dom:

Who do you suppose was behind the Packard Pen Company?  An advertisement for Packard pens in the Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer on June 21, 1928 answered that question:

The tipoff is buried in the fine print: “Packard & Waterson pens also made in smaller size”:

On December 23, 1930, the Rosslyn Drug Company advertised a three-piece set including a pocketknife strongly resembling Salz’ “Three Musketeers” set in the Los Angeles Evening Post:

The following year, “Bullet shaped” Keystone Pens were offered on behalf of its unnamed manufacturer in The Los Angeles Times on September 13, 1931.  The similarities between this and Kelley’s Banker advertisements are too much to ignore:

An advertisement in The Idaho Statesman illustrated “Banker-Keystone” pens and pencils on December 16, 1931.  These were more rounded than the bullet-shaped models; however, if Sheaffer forced the modification, it didn’t scare Kelley much.  These were offered with “Lifetime Chromium” nibs and if you look close, the illustrations showing the letter S in a circle at the top of otherwise unmarked clips:

An address for the company was finally revealed on March 4, 1932, when an advertisement in the Brooklyn Times Union identified the Keystone Pen and Pencil Company at 467 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.  

The company is listed at that address in the 1933 Brooklyn City Directory, and Sam Krasnor is identified as the proprietor:

Just as was the case in California, 467 Willoughby Avenue is a residence, in this case a three-story brownstone in an exclusively residential area - the 1933 directory lists Sam Krasnor and his wife Ruth as the occupants.  From what I can tell, “Sam Krasnor” had no other connections to the pen and pencil industry – I conclude that he and the Keystone Pen and Pencil Company were just another front for James Kelley’s operations.

Keystone advertisements along the lines of what have already been presented limp along through 1937, after which sets are offered on clearance for less than a dollar – no gimmicks, no side deals.  I never found any indication that the Federal Trade Commission caught up with Sam Krasnor or the Keystone Pen and Pencil Company, so perhaps Kelley’s nine-headed Hydra sacrificed a noggin for the cause.

However, the FTC did catch up with the Packard Pen Company, identifying it as an alias for one Harold Tanner – another name with no other apparent connections to the writing instrument industry.  On August 23, 1937, the FTC enjoined Tanner from the same litany of offenses as Kelley’s other enterprises, including specifically his use of the term “Lifetime Guaranty” . . . 

. . . and his use of “Master Banker’s” as a measure of size.  If the FTC had any inkling what was going on, they would rightly had assumed that the use of “Master” and “Banker” only meant James Kelley was behind it all.

 

Duh

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It’s hard now not to add the word “duh” to the following sentence: “This pencil, marked Spencerian, was made by Conklin.”

That’s the picture from page 150 of The Catalogue, written at a time when I thought “Spencerian” was a reference to the handwriting method in the generic sense, rather than to the Spencerian Pen Company, although I did note there was a “Spencerian Pen Company” in New York.  Mea culpa . . . all I can say is that if people waited until they knew everything to write a book, nobody would ever write a book.

Four years later, I’ve read Alfonso Mur’s book, The Conklin Legacy, and I’ve taken a few minutes to pose my Spencerian next to two of the Conklin Symetrik pencils pictured on page 34 of The Catalogue:

Double duh, huh? Notice that the celluloid on the Conklins is a solid piece of plastic which has been drilled, while the Spencerian shows those barbershop-pole seams that are a dead giveaway that the celluloid has been wrapped around a mandrel.  As for the clip, it matches pens from The Spencerian Pen Company’s 250 series, with “Accountants’ Extra Fine Points” according to the brochure published by Alfonso in his book.

But what about Spencerian’s 500 series, the I-N-K-S-E-E model?  Was there a matching “L-E-A-D-S-E-E” pencil for it?  If there is, I haven’t run across one yet.  But I have seen that clip before:

The upper two examples are marked “L.T. Waterbury,” and I posted an article a few months ago with everything I could find on the company . . . suggesting, at the end, that I suspected the L.T. Waterbury Co. was another of Joseph Starr’s shell operations (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/01/one-heckuva-clip.html).

Now it’s your turn to say “duh.”  The Starr Pen Company acquired what was left of Conklin in 1941 as the company began its downward spiral into oblivion.  With the same clip turning up on Spencerians and Waterburys, Since Waterbury pens were advertised in 1938 and defunct by 1941, when Starr acquired Conklin, I’m just going to put this out there right now as a hypothesis:

L.T. Waterbury’s pens and pencils, as bad as they were, were made by Conklin.  We can’t blame this one on Joseph Starr.

And there’s another little bit of bad news for those who think the Conklin Pen Company walked on water until that nasty Joe Starr ruined things.  Did you notice the name on the third pencil?

Pencils, pens and combos marked “Packard” are among the ugliest and worst quality writing instruments ever made.  On page 110 of The Catalogue, I said only “$3-5" because if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

But this one example has that same Spencerian-styled clip, although the detail on it isn’t quite as pronounced as it is on the Waterburys.  That raises the question: when were the Packard pens and pencils made?

Well folks, the Packard Pen Company of St. Paul, Minnesota was advertising a sackless, vacuum-filled fountain pen in 1936, when the Packard was already "famous," at the same time Conklin was making a very similar pen for The Spencerian Pen Company.

So I’m going to put something else out there, because this is where all the evidence is pointing.  The Starr Pen Company was founded in 1935, the same year Conklin apparently started making Spencerian pens.  Collectors’ lore is that Conklin was sold to a Chicago syndicate in 1938, after which quality began to slip a little, then sold again to Starr Pen Company in 1941, which immediately tarnished the once-proud company’s reputation by discontinuing the last quality products Conklin Toledo made and starting the production of . . . for lack of a better word . . . crap.

The evidence strongly suggests that Conklin didn’t start making crap in 1941 when Starr acquired it – Conklin continued making the same crap it had been making since 1935 for a number of different companies, including at least L.T. Waterbury and Packard.

And once those first two dominoes fall, there’s dozens of other third-tier, gawd-awful names lined up right behind these two.   I think we will find in the years to come that while Conklin fought valiantly to survive the Great Depression making quality writing instruments, it was quietly doing whatever it could to stave off its inevitable demise.  I believe Conklin may have manufactured many if not most of the simply awful third-tier brands in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.  If that’s true, it would make sense that the company did so very quietly, since having such lousy products associated with Conklin would damage the company’s reputation.

Oooh.  That pains me as much to say as it pains you to hear.