Putting A Name To It At Last

Eversharp pencils like these show up on page 78 of The Catalogue, in frame 48 ("Eversharp in Decline").  Although I’ve lumped these in with the other end-of-the-line Eversharps as "simply awful," these simple nose-drive pencils do have interesting clips . . .

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

Once A Year Ain't Bad

Ever since my girls were very little, I’d take them up for a weekend trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio each summer. We’d stay at the Breakers Hotel, we’d see Snoopy, we’d play on the beach, and we’d ride ourselves silly on rides.

My girls are growing up these days, and are both in High School now -- Heather’s going to be a senior and Hannah will be a sophomore. When I tell a corny joke these days, they roll their eyes instead of giggling – and that’s only if they weren’t texting or listening to an iPod and heard me. And, since they live with their mother, I see them less and less each year. This year they were both so busy that I wasn’t sure they’d want to go at all – in fact, we had to cancel our trip up there last month when one of their schedules unexpectedly changed.

But both of them reassured me that they really wanted to go, so we rescheduled – for this last weekend, in fact. We picked them up Thursday night and, bright and early Friday morning, we loaded up the car and off we went.

For something a little different this time, Janet suggested that we stop off on the way up and check out an antique mall on the main drag in Norwalk, Ohio. Norwalk is one county seat shy of Sandusky on our way up Route 250, and it’s a really nice, well put-together town with a downtown packed with beautifully restored Victorian storefronts. Of course, I’m always game for a stop at an antiques place, but this time I thought a stop would be a good chance for Janet to get to do something she’s interested in, since she doesn’t like roller coasters and – as she patiently does every year – she was going to spend a lot of time in souvenir shops and people watching while the girls and I rode the coasters.

The girls were bored. OK, they were boh - oh- oh- ored. Usually a stop in Norwalk means a round of mini-golf and some Ice Cream at Vargo’s, not a tour of some dusty old antique store! Heather doesn’t mind them as much, but she’d seen it all in ten minutes and was sitting on the curb next to the car in no time. Hannah occupied herself for a while with a vintage pinball machine, but after I pointed at the price tag and suggested that she probably didn’t want to blow her Cedar Point budget buying that if she broke it, she contented herself strolling up and down the street outside, peering in occasionally to see if we were done yet.

Janet found a nice sterling ring that made her very happy. As for me, I did find something I’d been scouting around for . . .

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

That's Heavy, Dude

Here’s another neat name I’d not seen on a pencil before. On the clip is simply the word "Atlas" . . .

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

Somewhere Between Sublime and Ridiculous

I’ve commented before that the Zaner-Bloser Company of Columbus, Ohio was essentially a one-trick pony when it came to mechanical pencils. Nearly all were cheaply made nose drive pencils, distinctive only in their unusual shape – although this doesn’t make them any less dear to a Columbus, Ohio native like me!

But I did say "nearly all," to take into account the super-rare Parker streamline Duofolds made for Zaner using Zaner’s unique shape. The Parker Zaners go for several hundred dollars if you can find one.

And I’d thought there was nothing in between the dollar junk box Zaners and the gee-I’d-buy-one-if-I-were-ever-lucky-enough-to-see-one Zaners, until these surfaced a little while ago . . .

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 Victorious Find

The Victor appears at page 160 of The Catalogue.  I’d noted in the book that these have a "Waterman-style" joint that is well above the center band, but I stopped short of suggesting Waterman had anything to do with the brand. Good thing, because it didn’t. A little while ago I managed to scrounge this up in an online auction . . .

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

Real Housewives of Minneapolis

At an online auction recently, I noticed a group of pencils – mostly not very good ones – in a single lot. One attracted my attention, because the seller indicated it was stamped "Dow Patent 3-6-23." As I am always the sucker for names and patent dates I’ve not seen before, I had to bite just to see what it was all about. Here’s the pencil,  and just as the seller described, there was the imprint on the bell 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

Ah . . . Now I Remember

Since we were talking about over-the-top clips, here’s another one. It’s just the top half, and I found it in one of Terry Mawhorter’s junk boxes.

I broke two rules when I bought it – I don’t buy unmarked things and I don’t buy parts unless I need it. But that clip was just so distinctive I decided to bring it home and poke around a bit to see what I could find out.

After a bit of searching, I sent out an S.O.S. to some pencil buddies to see what they thought, and Joe Nemecek answered the distress call in a manner I wasn’t expecting: "Don’t you remember?"

I had to confess that I didn’t. But after Joe reminded me, I did remember. And I remembered everything.

The year was . . . ok, so maybe I don’t remember everything. It was a few years ago at the Washington DC show. I was a little noncommittal about whether I was going to set up that year, and by the time I finally decided to do so, the tables in the regular area were sold out. Bob Johnson did accommodate me, by putting me and a few other last-minute stragglers in what used to be the old bar area in the hotel lobby.

Another last-minute straggler, set up just a couple doors down from me, was a fellow who had a collection of some 50 or 60 pens and pencils to sell. From what I remember, he wasn’t a regular dealer, just some guy that picked up this bunch from somewhere, didn’t know anything about them except what he read in a pre-bust price guide somewhere, and thought he’d try to sell them at a pen show.

I went though what he had during the feeding frenzy, and there were a few pencils in there that I liked, but there was a catch . . . the deal was all or nothing for one price, and it was a collector’s price, not a dealer’s price. That meant that there was a frenzy, but nobody was feeding. I circled back occasionally during the show to see if they’d decided to start parting things out, but the deal was always the same.

Then my old buddy Joe Nemecek stops by my table to show me what he picked up . . .

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