Tales from (That Other) Junk Box

I mentioned in “Tales From the Junk Box” on October 17 that I had purchased two small junk boxes from Michael Krut at the Detroit show. That earlier article featured Eversharp odds and ends that came from one of those boxes, and I casually noted that the other box contained “random fare.”

Random yes, and nearly all of its contents still reside there until the day comes when I need to scavenge parts . . . there were, however, a few things that merit a sentence or two:

Starting at the top is a pencil marked “Welsharp,” and I think these are best attributed to the Welsh Manufacturing Company, which may have faced objections from Eversharp for the use of that name. I’ve got four of these, all of which feature similar interesting plastics. The example at bottom in this next image is just awful . . . but it doesn’t eat much or take up that much room.

Next is a “Varsity,” rendered in the same script with that distinctive loop-around which was also used on pencils branded “Wilrite.” I’ve found a couple others along these lines over the years:

The other red one is marked “National” in a clip sharing the same design as other brands associated with Joseph Starr, that Chicago rascal best remembered as offering those later Chicago Conklin abominations. Similar clips are found on some pencils marked “Waltham” and if I recall (without plowing through drawers of similar fare) with other names as well. National pencils aren’t anything to write home about either, but they did come in a wide variety of pretty colors – so in it went with the others:

Next up, in black, is difficult to spot at first, since the clip is broken. Pen guys would call it a “Waterman 92 pencil,” which is a bit of a disservice since the pencil had its own designation as Model 93. As is the case with so many models – not just Waterman – black is the most difficult to find, so I’ve kept it as a placeholder until the day comes when a better example takes its place.

The second black pencil is what’s left of a Salz ‘Salrite missing its clip, but there’s two interesting things about it that keep it out of the parts bins for the time being. First is that metal band around where the clip was: while I’ve seen that treatment on a few of the later gold-filled ‘Salrites in rosewood hard rubber, I haven’t seen it on the black hard rubber models with nickel trim. See “Reacquainted with Old Friends” on August 12 and the Lodge-I-Cal in “That Last, Fascinating Reprise” on August 14.

This is a later model, marked with both of the Pencil Products Corporation’s patents issued in 1919 and 1922:

The other thing that is interesting about this one is the barrel, which lacks the typical ‘Salrite imprint but is marked number 114, in the same font as the model numbers imprinted on those sales samples from “One Spectacular Fell Swoop” (August 13).

Then there’s that gray pencil, made from the same celluloid seen on some later Eversharp Bantam pens and pencils with those purple flecks:

I theorize that this might be an unmarked pencil from the Camel Pen Company.

It isn’t an exact match, but the overall lines and similarity of their clips are undeniable.

The last one is newer than the others, marked “Kreisler” on the center band. Although these are newer than I typically go for, they do have a distinctive look and the mechanisms are solid, likely supplied either by Cross or Garland.

And, that jogged my memory to tell you about some things about the Kreisler . . . 

The More Complex Question

In “Rehabilitating a Lovely Rulebreaker” (October 5, 2025), I compared an unmarked pencil to a Mabie Magazine pencil made by Mabie, Todd & Co. I concluded that the unmarked pencil was probably made by Mabie Todd, but “the more complex question, however, is whether this is an unmarked Mabie Magazine pencil, made by Mabie Todd for its own account, or whether Mabie Todd might have manufactured it for someone else.”

Here is one of the reasons the answer isn’t as clean as it first appears:

From top, here are that unmarked sterling pencil, a Mabie Magazine Pencil with that same unusual clip patented on April 19, 1910, and what looks like a ringtop version of the Mabie Magazine, other than the imprint: “Salz Bros. Mfr. N.Y. / Pat. May 31 and June 7, 1910.”

Including the word “manufacturer” in an imprint is by itself unusual, since companies rarely drew any distinction between which products they sourced from other makers and those that were actually made in-house. The assertion that Salz actually made this is suspect: Salz Brothers and its colorful front man Ignatz Salz were on the slipperier end of the spectrum when it came to business practices – perhaps Salz was claiming to be a manufacturer, just not necessarily the one that made this particular product. 

Or it might have something to do with that second patent date of May 31, 1910. In “The Hard Proof” (July 14, 2017: Volume 5, page 46) I explored the relationship between the May 31 and June 7 patent dates. The latter date, which is the only patent date found on Mabie Magazine pencils (that I have seen anyway), refers to patent number 960,588, which Egon L. Schmitz applied for on December 21, 1909, but it was assigned not to Mabie Todd, but to another New York firm, the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company:

Sharing patent technology rather than suing each other for infringement was common among New York manufacturers, after the “Victorian Mafia” (as I’ve called it) decided such scuffles were bad for business – see “Johnson’s Influence” (August 23, 2017: Volume 5, page 94). However, the different houses typically sourced rebadged products from each other, rather than spending the money to actually make identical products in-house. 

That additional patent date on the Salz version, however, adds some spice to that equation. The May 31, 1910 date refers to patent number 959,531, applied for on June 1, 1909. The inventor was John A. Hollenberger of Hagerstown, Maryland, and his patent was not assigned to anyone at the time it was issued.

Does the absence of this second patent date from the Mabie Magazine Pencil mean that these pencils include only those features patented by Schmitz, while the Salz version adds a little Hollenberger for added flavor? Maybe. It’s also entirely possible that Mabie Todd had a license to use both patents but didn’t feel it was necessary to stamp both of them on its barrels.

In that 2017 article, I included an image of a Hutcheon Magazine Pencil. Hutcheon Brothers was another New York firm, and the Hutcheon version also has both the May 31 and June 7 patent dates:

Even though the Salz imprint includes the word “Manufacturer” while the Hutcheon version does not, I doubt that Salz actually made them and I doubt even more than Salz supplied Hutcheon with theirs. Hutcheon, to my knowledge, was exclusively a manufacturing house, and I’m not aware of any products the company offered that were made by someone else . . . unless, of course, Mabie Todd made these for Hutcheon. Also, as mentioned earlier, Ignatz Salz was slippery – and he was also cheap. I just can’t picture Salz investing the money to make what looks exactly like what Mabie Todd was making in much greater numbers right across town.

From this point, the web becomes even more tangled. Consider these pencils, all branded for “Hallmark”:

That’s not “Hallmark” as in the greeting card company, which didn’t adopt that trade name until 1927. Hallmark was a name adopted by United Jewelers, Inc. in 1916 – see “The Hallmark Mystery – Solved” (July 15, 1917: Volume 5, page 47). United Jewelers cooked up the notion of banding together in an attempt to strongarm those greedy pen and pencil manufacturers; members agreed only to carry “Hallmark” branded products, and as a group the organization would negotiate discounted prices with manufacturers. According to the trademark registration certificate for the Hallmark name, it was first used in commerce on July 7, 1916.

As these examples illustrate, Mabie Todd was one of those strongarmed manufacturers. The clips have only the Hallmark name, but they are unmistakably Mabie Todd’s ubiquitous January 19, 1915 patent clips.

Those top two examples are based on the Mabie Todd “Fyne Poynt,” and the bottom one is more germane to today’s discussion:

I’ve found another “Hallmark Magazine” pencil recently, in clipless configuration. Both of these examples have the May 31 and June 7 patent dates:

Is Mabie Todd the likely manufacturer of the “Hallmark Magazine” pencil, with both patents duly noted? I think that is a reasonable conclusion. In 1922, Mabie Todd would be strongarmed a second time by the Guild Products Corporation in a similar scheme, supplying rebadged pens and pencils marked “Guild.” See “Back to the Drawing Board” (August 26, 2013: Volume 2, page 226).

I left this subject in my earlier article on a cliffhanger, promising to return after the mailman had delivered a second care package I was expecting from Gabriel Galicia Goldsmith. I showed the entire bunch yesterday, including that Parker Scorekeeper bridge pencil, but this is the one I was talking about for our purposes today:

This one is marked for the Carey Pen Company, also of New York.

Carey, without question, sourced this pencil from whoever was making these magazine pencils for everybody and their brother in New York City. The only other Carey-marked pencils that I know of were rebadged leadholders made by George W. Heath & Co., and both of the examples I have found turned up back in 2012. See “Easy to Miss” (August 22, 2012: Volume 1, page 313) and “The Second Carey” (November 7, 2012: Volume 1, page 409). Here’s one of the images from the latter of these two articles:

Out of all of these New York magazine pencils I’ve shown you today, we can rule out Carey and United Jewelers (of Hallmark fame) as manufacturers. I think it’s safe to say Salz Bros. didn’t make them either – “manufacturer” imprint be damned. That leaves Mabie Todd and Hutcheon as my two likeliest suspects, and with Mabie Todd being the larger of the two I lean in that direction.

I haven’t leaned all the way to the point of falling over, though. I can’t discount the possibility that Hutcheon Brothers supplied not only Salz, United Jewelers and Carey, but perhaps even Mabie Todd. Hutcheon’s footprints were bigger than the shoes it appeared to wear – tune in tomorrow for more about that.

The Real Deal

Something else occurred to me as I was rereading the two previous articles I discussed yesterday (“Captain Obvious” on January 24, 2016: Volume 4, page 109 and “A Death Most Untimely” on July 23, 2021: Volume 7, page 280). These two articles, posted six years apart, reveal something interesting.

Yesterday I discussed the connection between the New Diamond Point Pen Company and the Eclipse Pen Company. The Court case discussed in “A Death Most Untimely” discussed Marx Finstone’s desire to consolidate Eclipse with his competitors: not just with Diamond Point, but also with two other New York pen companies, Salz Brothers and J. Harris & Co. Only Diamond Point was at issue in the litigation, so there’s no information regarding whether his other merger attempts were successful. 

At the end of “Captain Obvious,” I shared a stationer’s advertisement published in the Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Record on April 18, 1925:

At the time, I mused whether Diamond Point was also responsible for the Ambassador and “Banker’s Special” brands in addition to the Collegian, since this advertisement says all three are “Guaranteed by manufacturer,” not “manufacturers.”

That hypothesis is thin, and I knew that at the time; however, since I had forgotten that detail by the time I wrote about the Diamond Point/Eclipse litigation, I do think it bears a closer look now. “Ambassador” is well-documented as a J. Harris & Co. brand, so Marx Finstone’s interest in J. Harris may well have been for the same reasons as he was pursuing Diamond Point.

As for the “Banker’s Special,” I’m not so sure. In “Banker and the Specialty King” (July 25, 2021: Volume 7, page 285), I laid out all of the sordid details surrounding James Kelley, the flamboyant self-promoter. Kelley engaged in a cross-country cat-and-mouse game with the newly formed Federal Trade Commission, which hounded Kelley for his flagrant violations of laws regarding unfair and deceptive practices. Most notably, the FTC targeted Kelley’s trading on the good name of the L.E. Waterman Company by adopting the name “Waterson” in connection with pens and pencils.

Perhaps the FTC was being overly aggressive with Kelley to teach him a lesson, since Kelley was flagrantly thumbing his nose at the new agency. After all, as I noted in that article, any consumer who bought one of Kelley’s low-grade Waterson pens thinking it was a Waterman was a fool who should be parted with his money.

I didn’t find any evidence that James Kelley was responsible for any pen or pencil formally called the “Bankers’ Special.” He did, however, appropriate the “Banker” name from a Banker’s Pen Company that failed by 1922 and traded under the names “Banker,” “New Banker,” and “Kelley Banker.” He referred to his Banker pens and pencils with pointy or “gothic” top ends as the “Keystone Banker” in advertising.

As for that Keystone name . . . we’ll get to that one tomorrow. 

For our purposes today, the conclusion at which I had arrived in my earlier article was that the “Banker” and “New Banker” pencils with which we are familiar were products of James Kelley’s ventures. Kelley had appropriated the name from the original Bankers’ Pen Company, which had shuttered sometime in late 1921 or early 1922, likely a casualty of the brief but sharp 1921 economic slowdown. 

It is of course possible that there was another huckster who had also appropriated the “Banker’s Special” name – no honor among thieves and all. Had that been the case, I would have expected to find something marked “Banker’s Special” or some reference to the name other than in this lone stationer’s advertisement. Eliminating that possibility would be nice, but I’m inclined to “bank” on what is probable rather than what is possible. I don’t believe that in 1925, Kelley’s Banker pens and pencils were in any way connected with whoever was manufactured and warranted the Collegian or the Ambassador brands.

Neither did I believe that the original Bankers’ Pen Company made any pencils at all, because I didn’t know things like this existed at the time:

This hard rubber pencil turned up in an online auction, imprinted “Bankers Pen Co., Inc. / New York Pat.”:

Kelley’s Banker and New Banker writing instruments came in pretty colors, but they were not technically very sophisticated - none of their features were anything that would have been the subject of a patent. Also, Kelley’s Banker products are not known to exist in hard rubber. I am convinced this is the “real” Banker, made prior to the original Banker’s Pen Company’s failure sometime in 1921 or 1922.

What of this “patent” nonsense suggested by the imprint? There’s two suspects, one at either end of the pencil. At the nose, it has a “catch and release” leadholder configuration – unscrewing the nose a bit releases the lead, while tightening causes it to clamp down on the lead to secure it.

That was a patented innovation, but it was another New York manufacturer, not Banker’s, which laid claim to it:

Egon L.  Schmitz applied for patent number 960,588 on December 21, 1909, and when it was issued on June 7, 1910, it was assigned to the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company. I think this is most likely the patent referred to on this Bankers’ pencil – the time and the location fit what we know about the company well.

At the other end of the pencil, there’s another interesting feature that may have been patented somewhere along the line:

Those little prongs are pretty effective as a pencil sharpener. I checked that outstanding reference,  American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2: 1911-1945, and nothing struck me as applying to this doohickey. However, since it is an attachment rather than a writing instrument itself, it might have been filed away in some obscure patent category I wouldn’t have thought to search. 

That’s possible, but as I mentioned earlier, I’d rather bank on what is probable rather than what is possible. My money is on old Egon until something like this turns up with an actual patent date or number.   

That Last, Fascinating Reprise

Note: this third installment in a three-article series was published in the Spring 2025 issue of The PENnant, Journal of the Pen Collectors of America. The first installment is here.

When I attended the 2021 Chicago Show, I had in tow those three spectacular ‘Salrite pencils from the last installment of this series for ooooing and aaaaahing, and there were plenty of ooos and aaahs to be had. My antennae were up even more than usual for other examples of the ‘Salrite.

Rob Bader was also in attendance at the show, and as I pawed through the pile of things on his table Rob didn’t even know he had, he showed me a pencil he brought knowing I would jump all over it (Figure 1). I recognized it as a ‘Salrite, with James Salz’ patented mechanism and spare lead chamber (Figure 2), but the clip was an unmarked z-clip secured by a press-fitted trim band rather than the usual press-fit ‘Salrite clip – above which was a spectacular enameled emblem. The metal cap lacked the usual “Pencil Products Corporation” imprint, consistent with later examples of the ‘Salrite in my collection.

Figure 1. At top is a later ‘Salrite discussed in part one of this series, marked “Chase Pencil Corporation. Chase apparently took over production of the ‘Salrite between January and November 1924, and this was previously thought to be the final incarnation of the pencils. The example at bottom, acquired from Rob Bader at the 2021 Chicago Pen Show, clearly shares the same lines, but it is not marked ‘Salrite . . . and it adds one final chapter to the ‘Salrite story.

Figure 2. The new acquisition is clearly a ‘Salrite, complete with its patented mechanism and spare lead storage consisting of holes drilled around the barrel. The pencils are identical, other than the clip and the attractive enameled emblem above it.

Rob told me how much he wanted, and the deal was done as fast as I could whip the cash out of my pocket. I would have whipped that cash out even faster had I been examining it more closely with a loupe; back at my table, a closer examination of this new find revealed an imprint I had not yet seen: “Royal Pencil Corp. / Corona, N.Y.C.” (Figure 3).

Figure 3. ‘Salrite pencils are typically stamped “Pencil Products Corp.” and Lucifer Most’s patent date of December 23, 1919, and later models also include a reference to James Salz’ patent of May 2, 1922. This new example, however, is stamped only with the 1922 patent date followed by “Royal Pencil Corp. / Corona, N.Y.C.”

Recall from the first installment in this series of articles that the ‘Salrite’s demise began with an unfavorable decision by the Patent Office, which denied Salz registration of the name “Salzrite” in March, 1923 due to a likelihood of confusion with the Sandfelder Corporation’s “Shur-Rite” trademark.  The ‘Salrite was last offered for sale in January 1924, and by November a “Chase Pencil Corporation” had taken over production of the pencils.

I was fairly confident this Royal Pencil Corporation was not connected with the makers of those crappy, later third-tier pens and pencils marked “Royal,” and the reference to Corona, New York ruled out production across the pond (where “Royal Imperial” wood pencils were made for distribution in the United States). A “Royal Pencil Corporation” fit nowhere into my research, and this was the first time I couldn’t wait for a pen show to end, just so I could research Rob’s pencil as soon as I got home!

My research took only a few seconds, after a search for “Royal Pencil Corporation” turned up as its first result a 2007 blog post by New Zealander “Kiwi Dave” over at Dave’s Mechanical Pencils, who included low-resolution images of a Royal Pencil Corporation brochure in his article. Dave was kind enough to supply better quality images of the brochure, which includes Salz’ “Machine Gun of Commerce” catchphrase and also refers to the pencil as the ‘Salrite, even though the pencils are not so marked (Figure 4). There is an illustration of one pencil with a red hard rubber nose, begging the question of whether an all-red hard rubber pencil was made by or for Royal (Figure 5). 

Figure 4. It took only a few minutes for the author to find “Kiwi Dave’s” 2007 article about the Royal Pencil Corporation at his “Dave’s Mechanical Pencils” blog, which included a low-resolution image of this Royal Pencil brochure. Dave graciously supplied this higher resolution image of the brochure.

Figure 5. The back side of the brochure shows various models. Note the “Machine Gun of Commerce” catchphrase, which had been used by Salz to promote the ‘Salrite since 1921, and the text describes the pencils as the ‘SALRITE, even though the pencils themselves are not so marked. Note that the example at left has a red nose, presumably also made of hard rubber; as of this writing, no red ‘Salrite pencils have been found, and the possibility of finding an example like this or with a matching red barrel is tantalizing indeed!

Other details in the brochure fill in more of the story: note the Copyright date in the bottom corner is 1928 (Figure 6) – four years after the brief emergence of the Chase Pencil Corporation, and long after the Sandfelder Corporation’s “Shur-Rite” was out of production.

Figure 6. This brochure includes a copyright date of 1928, four years after the Chase Pencil Corporation had taken over production of the ‘Salrite. By that time, many manufacturers had discontinued the use of hard rubber in pencil barrels, making the Royal a last gasp for both the ‘Salrite and hard rubber pencils generally. 

There’s more. The front cover indicates the Royal Pencil was marketed – but not marked – as the “Lodge-I-Cal” pencil (it took me a minute to catch the play on the word “logical” – Figure 7). 

Figure 7. The “Lodge-I-Cal” trademark is shown in this portion of the brochure in Figure 5, with a pencil forming the letter I, is a play on “logical” and Royal’s business model of producing pencils with fraternal emblems. The “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” Legend sent the author back to read his own book, American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, to see if a trademark was registered for the mark.

The “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” notation accompanying the mark signifies that the Royal Pencil Corporation at least claimed to have registered a United States trademark, and I happen to have written an excellent book on the subject: American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953. I flipped through my book, and there it was: William H. Watt, president of the Royal Pencil Corporation at 110-64 Corona Avenue, Corona, New York, applied for registration of the Lodge-I-Cal mark – complete with its stylized pencil in place of the letter I – on March 7, 1929.

Figure 8. In the author’s defense, the only documentation connecting the “Lodge-I-Cal” mark to the Royal Pencil Corporation was the image in Figure 4. William H. Watt, president of the Royal Pencil Corporation at 110-64 Corona Avenue, Corona, New York, applied for registration of the Lodge-I-Cal mark on March 7, 1929, claiming that the mark was first used in commerce on February 1, 1929. Registration was granted on December 10, 1929 as Trademark 264,864.

The Lodge-I-Cal mark was granted registration on December 10 1929 as Trademark 264,864 (Figure 8). The certificate states that Royal claimed first use of the mark in commerce on February 1, 1929; if that is true, Royal’s brochure was printed before the pencils themselves were produced. By 1929, most manufactures had discontinued the use of hard rubber in favor of brightly colored celluloid in the manufacture of writing instruments, making the Royal Lodge-I-Cal a last gasp for both the ‘Salrite and hard rubber pencils. 

Perhaps that is why it has taken me so long to find one – then again, without any identifying marks on the pencil other than “Royal Pencil Corp.,” perhaps I have been searching the online auctions in all the wrong places, since I haven’t actively searched for those lousy, third-tier “Royal” pencils.

But wait . . . there’s even more.

Note that every pencil in the brochure has an emblem affixed above the clip: “Lodge-I-Cal” referred to the Royal Pencil Company’s business model of producing pencils “furnished with emblem [sic] of all Secret, Civic, and Fraternal societies.” The pencils illustrated include fraternal emblems for the Knights of Columbus, the Elks, the Masons, and the Lions . . . plus a few others I don’t recognize. The emblem mounted on the example I acquired from Rob is incorporated into the border on the front page (Figures 9 and 10).

Figure 9. Detail of the enameled emblem on the Royal, with a mysterious “JrOUAM” designation. The compass and square strongly suggests a Masonic connection.

Figure 10. The JrOUAM emblem is incorporated into the border of the Royal brochure in Figure 4.

The compass and square incorporated into the emblem evoke a Masonic connection, although the meaning of the “JrOUAM” legend and arm-and-hammer in the middle eluded me. My friend John Hall is no longer with us to drive up in his miniature Tin Lizzy and tell me what this means, but fortunately he isn’t the only Mason I know: Bruce Mindrup, who was also in attendance at that Chicago show, took one look at Rob’s pencil and recognized the insignia . . . almost.

“I’ve seen this,” Bruce said several times, racking his brain for where and when. “I think I have a badge at home with this on it.” He puzzled for the remainder of the weekend until his puzzler was sore, and I felt guilty knowing that he wouldn’t rest until he remembered what it meant. I felt even more guilty when I received a letter from Bruce more than a month later: he still hadn’t found the badge, but he did find something that at least partly scratched the cranial itch I had given him. A Masonic meeting hall in Greenport, Long Island has a sign mounted on the outside, with this same logo indicating that “JrOUAM” stands for the “Junior Order United American Mechanics” fraternal organization (Figure 11). 

Figure 11. The author asked Bruce Mindrup, an active Mason who was in attendance at the show, what “JrOUAM” meant. Mindrup had seen it, but he couldn’t remember where. A month after the show, the author received this letter from him: a sign on the outside of a Masonic meeting hall in Greenport, Long Island indicates that “JrOUAM” stands for the Junior Order United American Mechanics.

The JrOUAM was founded in Germantown, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia) on May 17, 1853, and unfortunately, the organization has an ugly past. Among its stated objectives, according to the History of the Junior Order United American Mechanics (1897), was nativist xenophobia: “to use such means, when able, as will prevent the current system of emigration of foreign paupers to our land” (page 19). Wikipedia suggests something even darker, that the organization was founded as an overtly anti-Catholic order. 

While there is no reference to “Catholic” in the 1897 history, the Wikipedia article notes that membership in the JrOUAM remains restricted to Protestants to this day. Its numbers have dwindled, but it continues to maintain a website at which only virtue, liberty, and patriotism are identified as the “principles of the order.” No publicly available source documents any formal relationship between the JrOUAM and the Masons, but the compass and square incorporated into its logo and its presence on the side of Masonic meeting hall suggests at least collaboration, if the JrOUAM has not been fully absorbed.

According to the Mason’s website, “Freemasonry is not concerned with theological distinctions or particular religious beliefs,” but the order requires its members to “believe in the existence of a Supreme Being.” 

The Catholic Church objects to the Masons’ noncommittal views as to what particular flavor of “Supreme Being” its members attorn, and beginning in 1738 Catholics were forbidden from joining the Masons under pain of excommunication. Pope John Paul II removed the penalty of excommunication in 1983, but reiterated the Church’s ban on joining the order.

Times change, and perspectives change with them. As for me . . . I simply prefer to enjoy a neat pencil with a great story to tell.

One Spectacular Fell Swoop

Note: this second installment in a three-article series was published in the Summer 2024 issue of The PENnant, Journal of the Pen Collectors of America. The first installment is here. 

In the first installment of this series, I presented the meteoric rise and fall of the Salz ’Salrite pencil, from its origins as the metal “Sta-Sharp” pencil manufactured by the Pencil Products Corporation beginning in 1919, into its commanding hard rubber incarnation beginning in late 1921, through the adverse ruling before the United States Patent Office in 1923 that made Salz the likely target of the Federal Trade Commission, and ending with the brief handoff of ’Salrite production to a mysterious “Chase Pencil Corporation” in 1924.

This history is fairly complete. However, two loose ends in this story continued to bug me.

The first was an offhand remark from a 1924 closeout advertisement that the ’Salrite was available in three sizes, and I only knew of two: a short “ring-top” (in quotes because sometimes Salz mounted the ring on the top, and sometimes it was affixed to the side, on a metal band), and the full-sized models with the Salz “Shur Hold” clip—the name for which was likely the strongest evidence that the company was deliberately trading on the “Shur-Rite” name (fig. 1). What was this third size? A thin model, perhaps a continuation of the metal pencil line? An extra-long baseball bat of a pencil? Or a pipsqueak? Hmmm...

Figure 1. The state of my knowledge before a chance online discovery: two sizes, a ring-top with the ring either on top or mounted on the side affixed to a band, and a full-sized model. What was that third size mentioned in closeout advertisements?

The second unanswered question arose from the patent commissioner’s remarks in his decision to deny registration of the “Salz Rite” name: “Advertisements of applicant of record in the case show that generally the ‘z’ of the mark is inconspicuous, sometimes appears as a double hyphen and at least in once instance is omitted entirely,” wrote Assistant Patent Commissioner Fenning. 

I had found variations of ’Salrite imprints with a tiny “z” snuck in the middle, and variations with no “z” or apostrophe (fig. 2). But a “double hyphen”? I had resigned myself to the belief that since the commissioner referred only to Salz advertisements, perhaps this comment was the result of artistic license in illustrations at the time.

Figure 2. The Patent Office mentioned that Salz either omitted the “z” in “Salz Rite,” shrank it down so that it was inconspicuous, or used a double hyphen in its place. Here are examples of no Z and little Z...does a double-hyphen imprint exist?

Tantalizing evidence suggested that (1) there were three sizes while I only knew of two, and (2) another variation of the ’Salrite imprint may or may not exist. To those who don’t suffer from CDO (that’s OCD with the letters in the right order), these might seem like trifles. Nevertheless, I never stopped searching for answers, and both of these questions were answered—resoundingly—all at once, in one online auction a couple years ago (fig. 3). 

Figure 3. These three examples of the ’Salrite surfaced in an online auction in 2021, resolving any lingering doubts I had regarding what three sizes were offered, and whether a “double-hyphen” imprint existed.

Question one answered: yes, there were three sizes of hard rubber ’Salrites...and that third size was a pipsqueak (fig. 4).

Figure 4. The elusive third “pipsqueak” size, shown beside an ordinary ring-top ’Salrite.

All three of these are ring-tops—even the side-clip example has a ring mounted at the top. Better still, all three of these also resoundingly answered my second question about the existence of “double hyphen” imprints (figs. 5 and 6).

Figure 5. The side-clip example in this trio clearly shows the double-hyphen ’Sal=Rite imprint.

Figure 6. The pipsqueak example has both a double hyphen imprint on the cap and an unusual decorative band.

These are the finest examples of the ’Salrite I have ever encountered. In fact, in my opinion they are among the finest examples of any American mechanical pencil ever made, manufactured sometime between the hard rubber ’Salrite’s introduction in late 1921 and the Patent Commissioner’s adverse ruling in early 1923.  The mottled example, in addition to the double hyphen imprint, is shop marked “225" filled in with gold (fig. 7). These are either part of a salesman’s sample kit or shop models, made to show off what the company was capable of producing. 

Figure 7. The mottled example shares the double-hyphen imprint on the cap, and it also bears a shop-marked “225” filled in with gold. The significance of this mark is unknown; maybe it designated a model number or a date (perhaps February 25, 1922 or 1923?). Less likely is that it designated the price—$2.25 seems low for this quality of construction.

The overlay on the side clip model appears to be gold filled, but the tooling expenses to produce it must have been exorbitant (figs. 8 and 9). Salz may not have done the metalwork itself, but may have bought the parts.

Figure 8. The side-clip model sports the same pressed-in clip found on earlier ’Salrite metal pencils. Attaching Salz’s wraparound “Shur Hold” clip to an overlay would have been unsightly, if not impossible.

Figure 9. The overlay on the side-clip model appears to be gold filled, and the tooling costs for what appears to be a one-off must have been exorbitant.

The crown jewel of this trio, however, is the mottled example. The overlay is hand-engraved, and it is exquisitely preserved with no trace of wear.  The overlay is unmarked as to metal content, but the top, as with the other two examples, is marked 1/10 – 18k, meaning gold filled (fig. 10).

Figure 10. The mottled hard rubber example has an overlay that may not be solid gold, but which is nevertheless exquisitely preserved and may be new old stock. It appears to be hand -engraved.

For weeks after these three examples surfaced, I kept an eye on the online seller’s listings in the hopes that they might be part of a larger set the seller was liquidating. I even searched completed auctions to see if I had missed anything else. Nothing ever surfaced, so these appear to be all that remains of a salesman’s kit from the zenith of the ’Salrite’s short but spectacular run.

In the previous installment of this series, I teased out the notion that the ’Salrite did briefly reemerge for “one last, fascinating reprise.” These three examples arrived on my doorstep in the nick of time for me to bring them to the September 2021 Chicago Pen Show, just for show and tell ... and by coincidence, it was at that very show that I learned all about that reprise. That story is coming up, in the last installment of this series.

The third installment in this series is here.