The Mythical Waterman Pencil of 1909

The L.E. Waterman company, as an American pen manufacturer, leaves a legacy of being a pioneer.  In fact, at dinner last night, one of my friends (a non-collector who is for lack of a better word "amused" that I not only collect pencils, but actually took the time to write a book about it) asked me, "Didn't Waterman invent the fountain pen?"

As a pencil manufacturer, however, Waterman wasn't exactly out in front of the pack.  While Sheaffer and Wahl had introduced pencils in 1917 and 1918, respectively (Wahl, of course, having acquired the rights to Charles Keeran's Ever Sharp design of 1913), Waterman didn't offer any pencils at all until 1919, and those weren't even made by Waterman.  As I explore in The Catalogue (pages 161 and 162), Waterman did not introduce a pencil of its own design until 1922.

Here is a fairly typical example of that first generation of original Waterman pencils, imprinted simply "Waterman's" at the top . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

A Tweeten update

Skip Nemecek, the president of Tweeten Fibre Co., was kind enough to email me a link to a picture of our man Oscar Tweeten (see "The Tweeten" posted on November 8), which has been posted at the Chicago Billiard Museum's website . . .


NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

The Self Sharpening Pencil Co.

Some time ago I was trolling around the U.S. Patent Office records, and I ran across this patent, which I had put in my "gee, wouldn't it be cool to find one of THOSE" file:

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Is it a Waspy Sheaffer, or a Sheaffery Wasp?

Today I'm introducing a neat find from the Ohio Show (Dan Reppert's table, in fact) - one of those things I saw, walked right by, thought about, thought about some more, said to myself "now wait a minute, that's not right...," and then realized what I'd just passed up.  Fortunately, it was still there when I circled back around.  Before I introduce it, here's a picture to illustrate why this one is special . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

The Tweeten

Janet and I decided on a much-needed weekend getaway after The Catalogue went to the printer, so we booked a room at the lodge in Salt Fork State Park (outside of Cambridge, Ohio) to enjoy a bit of fall foliage, commune with nature and, of course, scrounge around in a few out-of-the-way antique stores we'd not been to before. . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Hello and welcome!

Greetings, pencil fans!  
My name is Jon Veley, and this past weekend I launched my new book, "The Catalogue of American Mechanical Pencils," at the Ohio Pen Show in Columbus (well, actually Dublin), Ohio.   Whew.   Books are heavy.  Here's a shot from Sunday:

I suppose if I had stayed at my table all weekend, I probably would have sold a few more books and I certainly wouldn't have spent as much money as I did.  But thanks to the kindness of friends and family (thanks Janet, Heather, Michael and John) I did manage to find the time to roam around a bit and empty my wallet.   Here's what I ended up coming home with:

Now in all fairness, the lower case contains mostly stuff that I had found between the time my book went to press and the Ohio Show.   However, I have found all these things since The Catalogue went to press, so none of them are in the book.  Some are minor variations on themes already covered in the book: maybe a different band here, or a different color there, nothing that significantly changes what's already been written.  But others are really neat discoveries that I really wish I had known about when I was finishing up the book.  And of course, every day I learn something new.
That's why I decided to start this blog: to update the world on what's been turning up since The Catalogue was written.  I'm not sure how often I'll be adding material (I do have a day job that sometimes gets in the way), but I'll shoot for daily and play that one by ear.   A couple of my fellow pencil fanatics have expressed some interest in contributing guest blogs, which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, too.
So stay tuned and enjoy!