Accessions and Deaccessions

My reputation as a Parker hater isn’t really accurate, even though I’ve poked the wounded bear a few times here by suggesting Parker made some regrettable lower-quality things for other companies. Maybe this article will redeem me – I have several items in the Parker wing of the museum that I haven’t written about, many of which are truly one of a kind.

A few years ago, Larry Liebman told me he would like to rehome some Parker prototype pencils, and he thought the museum might be a good place for them to enjoy their retirement.

At top is a “Reporter,” a weird Parker subbrand that I haven’t thought about much since the first volume here at the blog; I haven’t seen one for years, so there hasn’t been an occasion to circle back around to them.

These are rarely found in working order, since the material had a tendency to shrink and freeze the mechanism in place. This one works, and the overall shape and proportions are slightly different from what I’ve seen before. Usually these are marked “Reporter” on the clip, but that blue one at bottom is marked “Parco.”

In “Harder Than It Had To Be” (April 10, 2012: Volume 1, page 169), I had concluded that these were a Canadian product, thanks to George Kovalenko’s contribution of an advertisement by Eaton’s, a Canadian retailer. I no longer believe these were exclusively for the Canadian market, though – a current search of newspapers turns up more American advertisements than Canadian, beginning in fall, 1930. This one (abridged here) was in the Great Falls (Montana) Leader on September 12, 1930:

These may have worked as well when they were new as they do today – Reporter Pencils were being blown out at clearance prices by mid-1930, and the last advertisement I found was published in December, 1931.  

That second example, in coral, sports an ill-fitting washer clip sandwiched between the top and bottom sections. 

Years ago I saw another example just like this, including the ill-fitting clip – I believe Joe Nemecek had it. It seems like too much of a coincidence that the only two of these I’ve seen have that same poorly fitted clip, and besides: even if the clip isn’t right, the rest of the pencil is so weird that if it was supposed to have something else, I have no idea what that might be.

The two ringtop pencils are fairly straightforward, except for the banding.

These are typically one solid color, sometimes tipped at the ends with black. The black used on these, however, is not that same material – on closer examination, it has shrunk a bit.

Speaking of weird gold-capped Duofolds, Eric Magnuson brought this one by for a photo session a few years ago: 

This one looks almost like a reproduction: those green veins are something very atypical for Parker, and it isn’t hard to make these Duofold barrels out of modern materials since there’s nothing more to them than threading opposite ends of a straight tube. Eric’s example is the real deal, though, fully marked with a Duofold imprint.

Larry’s red vest pocket pencil (some call them “golf pencils,” but we’ll get to that tomorrow) is unusual because of that added black band. Also . . . now that I think of it, when I find these in red they have a longer, less streamlined top than these. More on that tomorrow, too . . .

The rest of Larry’s deaccessions in this batch were in Parker’s “Pearl and Ebony” (as described in Parker’s 1928 and 1929 catalogs), renamed “Moderne Black-and-Pearl” in Parker’s 1930 catalog; none of these, however, were in any of Parker’s catalogs.

That weird vest pocket-ish pencil isn’t anything found in regular production. As mentioned earlier, vest pocket pencils had long tapered or short streamlined tops, but nothing so rounded as to be perilously close to Walter Sheaffer’s design patent for the Balance line’s golf pencil.

On these, my working theory has always been that the example at top is earlier, and the more streamlined, shorter caps are later – but I don’t think that’s right. More on that tomorrow.

Next are a couple shop pieces, showing how Parker’s design department was playing around with different designs:

The one with a “tip” is a dummy – there’s nothing there to write with.

At bottom is a “pregnant” Duofold, to borrow the term from the collector’s nickname for earlier Parker fountain pens with bulbous barrels. It is unusual not only for its girth but also because there are no black ends; the 1928 and 1929 catalogs showing the Pearl and Ebony flattop Duofold pencils only show those with black ends.

And speaking of black . . .

These also came from Larry, but at some other time. They are along the lines of the pastel Duofolds shown in Parker’s 1929 and 1930 catalogs – I owed it to you to show you a spread of these to explain yesterday’s reference to George Parker and the Easter Bunny.

What makes these two unusual is the trim: the deluxe trim, with that wider center band, was first cataloged in the green pearl Duofolds in 1932. This is “reverse trim,” meaning it is the opposite color from what one would expect to see – these typically had gold filled trim. As for the other, that extra-wide gold filled band is to my knowledge uncataloged. I don’t have any evidence to tell me whether this is factory or a jeweler’s modification.

I mentioned my photo shoot with Eric Magnuson earlier, and Eric had a couple other things to share. First is this streamlined Duofold pencil:

It is close to, but not quite the same as, the color of my gray Parker Zaner Bloser pencil:

Like his yellow pencil with green veins, this one is also fully marked with a Duofold imprint:

Eric also brought his examples of those weird “Parco” pencils – not along the Reporter lines as shown earlier, but those with black plastic caps. We got our respective collections together for a group shot:

Finally, Eric brought his weird Challenger/Duofold hybrid in mandarin yellow, shown here alongside my larger (and a little messed up) example and at bottom, a “normal” Mandarin Duofold:

Those top two are ordinary nose drive pencils, while the bottom one has a typical rear-drive Duofold mechanism.

Both of these Challenger/Duofold hybrids have Duofold imprints:

While my larger example doesn’t have any markings on the cap, Eric has two of the smaller ones – both have advertising imprints, suggesting these mules were put together from leftover parts and sold however they could be sold.

My last news on the weird Parker front – for now – is this one, courtesy of Fred Copsey-Pearce:

Parker fans will immediately recognize this one as one of Parker’s special-order pencils for the Zaner-Bloser Company of Columbus, Ohio, with Zaner-Bloser’s typical contoured grip. As with other pencils made by Parker for Zaner-Bloser, it is imprinted on the cap; however, it lacks the “Made by Parker Pen Company” part you’ll usually see:

The last time I saw a Parker Zaner-Bloser pencil in lapis was when a pen and pencil set turned up in the Chicago Pen Show auction a few years ago. It sold for more than you’d pay for a used Volkswagon, more than I could afford – I approached the buyer after the auction to see if he’d sell the pencil, but he wanted to keep the set together. I can’t say I blame him.

Fred’s example is missing the top piece and the clip, and I’m still waiting for the right parts to make that happen; the diameter of the opening at the top is larger than any normal Duofold, and someone crudely wedged a now-fossilized eraser in its place after it went missing.

Fred says that he ran across this one in an online auction, and everybody missed it – myself included. But wait . . . there’s more. Fred says it was part of a lot that included some other odd things . . . 

These are dummy pens rather than functioning models, so I’m saying the following with caution: look at that cap . . .

If these were finished, production pens, I’d say that top is a dead giveaway that these were made by the Pick Pen Company in Cincinnati – that might make sense that another Ohio company wanted to make pens for a Columbus firm. It might also explain – if these were made by Pick – why the typical Parker Pen Co. mention is absent on the cap of the lapis pencil, and also why a normal Duofold end plug isn’t the right size.

But these are conceptual dummies, not finished products, so it’s just as likely that whoever made this just didn’t finish the lathe work on the cap. Besides, there are some similarities between these and Larry’s pencil barrels.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to know . . . when the artifacts themselves are the only available evidence, the information vacuum leaves a few holes in the story. 

Ten Oversights

This article has been included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 7, now available here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy the article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

Something was bothering me while I was writing yesterday’s article about the Parker Zaner-Bloser.  I dug deep into my well of prior research looking for chapter and verse regarding the design patents for the unique shape. . . all the way back to Volume 1, when I was writing about those crappy plastic and wood pencils (remember, of course, that “crappy” does not mean I don’t like them, nor that I don’t have a few):

The published article (Volume 1, page 380) included images of two design patents: the first one for the penholder, and the last one for the mechanical pencil.  Those were the two patents I dove back into that file folder to find - imagine my surprise to find in the image folder that in addition to those two, I also had images of design patents for the double-ended penholder and the “true blue” Zaner-Bloser” fountain pen.

It would be another two years before I would write American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2: 1911-1945, so I must have found these two patents the old-fashioned way . . . poking and prodding the internet until blind luck favored me with a result - and since they weren’t strictly pencil-related, I apparently never published them.

Big mistake.  Huge.

When I wrote the patent books, I followed a methodology that worked remarkably well: I started with the utility patents filed with Category 401, then branched out into “known” categories in which I’d found artifacts.  This caught a lot of other patents which wouldn’t otherwise have made it into the book, since they weren’t filed in categories that were strictly pen or pencil related

The best example is Ephraim Johnson’s “pearl patent” of December 5, 1871, number 121,627.  Although we associate Johnson’s patent with pencils, it was filed in category 138, subcategory 140: “pipes and tubular conduits,” “distinct layers.”  The only reason I knew to include it in the book was because I had seen it imprinted on so many pearl-slabbed pencils.

As I was writing the patent books, I went back through all the articles I had posted at the blog and went through all the categories in which the patents were filed that I’d written about.  In the case of the Parker Bloser patents . . . well, I ran down the categories for the two patents that eventually ran in the article, fully explored the and faithfully reported everything I found. 

As for the two that didn’t make the cut?  Oops.  They were filed in obscure subcategories I never explored.  The oversight wasn’t a total loss; patents are frequently indexed under several different categories, most of the patents in those categories made it into the book because they were cross-indexed in other categories I had checked.  However, ten design patents -- including these two -- got past me. 

Design patents are found in category D19, “Office supplies; artists and teachers materials,” and the subcategories are insane.  Parker Z. Bloser’s design patent for the double-ended penholder was filed in subcategory 117: “Equipment for writing, drawing, or for fine arts: opposed tips.”  Nearly everything that was filed in that category was also filed somewhere else, with one fun exception:

Gilbert Nelson of Clear Lake, Wisconsin received Design Patent 74,119 on December 20, 1927.  In this case, one of the “opposed tips” is a pencil – the other, however, is a pencil-shaped lollipop.

The Zaner-Bloser fountain pen (Design patent 82,309) was filed in category D19/168: “Marking or writing instrument,” “including a cap,” “cap or barrel includes a clip,” “barrel has combination of shapes in side view.”  Seven other design patents were also squirreled away in this category – seven which didn’t make it into the book but should have.

1. Design patent 107,438, issued to Charles J. MacNally of Jamaica, New York on December 14, 1937, for a combined fountain pen and check protector:

2. Design patent 124,609, issued to Louis Morrison of New York, New York on January 14, 1941 – this illustrates the Morrison “Black Beauty” pen:

3. Design patent 124,725, issued to David Ornstein of New York, New York on January 21, 1941, for a pen with a watch set into the top:

4. Design patent 138,826, issued to Maurice Waldinger, Jr. of Flushing, New York on September 19, 1944:

5. and 6. Design patents 139,904 and 139,905 were both issued to Abraham Baff of North Arlington, New Jersey for versions of a pen with a flattened barrel:

7. Design patent 141,859, issued to Martin Ullman of New York on July 10, 1945, and assigned to Maurice J. Waldinger:

There are probably other categories in Design group 19 that eluded me - I started spot-checking some of the others and so far, I don’t think I missed anything else.  There’s been several articles here with other patents that weren’t in the book, but they only surfaced because an artifact was found with an imprint leading to a category I never would have thought to check.  This time, darn it - these were right under my nose.

The Long Road Home

This article has been included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 7, now available here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy the article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

The Parker Pen Company made fountain pens and pencils for the Zaner-Bloser Company of Columbus, Ohio.  They are exceedingly rare, but I have managed to find a few examples:

These are easy to spot with their coke-bottle shaped, ergonomic form, which was protected by design patents.  The earliest patent was for a dip pen holder only, and was issued to J.F. Barnhart on September 10, 1891 (design patent 35,059, pictured in Volume 1, page 380).  

Parker Z. Bloser secured design patents for other variations on the Zaner-Bloser shape.  On April 17, 1928 he applied for one for a double-ended pen holder, which was granted July 17, 1928 as Design Patent 75,772:

On August 5, 1930, he applied for a fountain pen version, issued October 21, 1930 as Design Patent 82,309:

And on May 13, 1936, he applied for a patent for the shape applied to a mechanical pencil, issued August 18, 1936 as Design Patent 100,845

Even if I weren’t writing this blog and documenting finds as they arrive, I’d remember where all but one of these originated.  It started with the Modernistic (“True Blue”) set at the bottom, which came, complete with a bit of smoke damage, from Ginger Welch – she was liquidating Stan Pfeiffer’s collection after the house fire that took Stan’s life (see Volume 2, page 2).  

The green one in the middle came from Dan Zazove (see Volume 4, page 135), and the pen just above it was sold to me by George Rimakis.  The only one of these for which I don’t recall the source is the black ringtop at the top.

That leaves that greyish green example, in a plastic that resembles Parker’s “Zephyr” plastic, but the color is just a shade more green.  I wrote about it in Volume 3, page 83 – it was a long wait for that pencil, with a couple of years intervening between when its owner first posted it online and when he took me up on my offer to take it off his hands.

I couldn’t remember his name at the time I wrote the article, but in the last year he has resurfaced: Gabriel Galicia Goldsmith is now a prolific collector, and he’s been sharing many of his new and interesting finds on Facebook over the last few months.  He reached out to me to ask about the Parker Zaner-Bloser pencil he had sold me . . . he wanted it back.

We’ve all been there - selling something, regretting it, then buying it back again.  He explained that the pencil had belonged to his grandfather, which added an extra helping of pain to the story.

I wanted to help him, but there were a couple problems.  First, things don’t usually leave the museum after they arrive . . . I really wanted to keep it. Second  is that prices on these have gone up significantly, and I figured it was probably worth twice the hefty price I’d paid Gabriel for it a few years ago.  Third was my quandry about the price – I subscribe to the Rob Bader philosophy regarding pricing: my price is the amount it will take me to find something I like just as much.  But selling grandpa’s pencil back to its prior owner?   Geez, I really didn’t want to sell it for less than it is worth now, but I didn’t feel good about charging that amount given the circumstance. 

I knew where another example was and that would solve both of our problems: Larry Liebman had one, and a little birdie (should we call him Larry bird?) told me Larry might part with it.  I contacted Larry, and the deal was struck: Gabriel would pay Larry whatever Larry wanted for his example, Larry would ship it to me, and when I received Larry’s replacement, I’d ship Gabriel’s pencil back.  Everybody wins: I don’t set the price, I get something I like exactly as much as what I have, and I even would have the chance to photograph the two together and see if there are any differences between them.

There were: the clip on Gabriel’s pencil has a plain, Depression-style Parker clip with sans-serif lettering, while Larry’s example has Parker spelled out in serifed letters, like an earlier Duofold . . . but without Parker’s 1916 patent date.  Also, note that Gabriel’s pencil has a domed top, while the cap on Larry’s is flat:

There’s one other little difference on the side.  It has the same imprint – but running the other direction. 

After these shots were taken, Gabriel’s grandfather’s pencil was back in his hands – seven years later!