And Now, For an Intermission From My Break

You’d think, with the Blog being all quiet for a few weeks, that I’ve been sipping Pina Coladas poolside in some lush tropical resort. But while all may be quiet here, such has not been the case at Leadhead’s spread, where I’ve been so busy putting the finishing touches on my second book that "just" putting up a daily blog entry sounds downright relaxing.

That hasn’t stopped me from shopping and thinking. The 2013 Chicago Pen Show netted so many new and interesting finds that I’ve had to put them in a box in the corner of pencil central to keep them out of sight and hopefully out of mind long enough to get this manuscript finished. It’s been a challenge staying out of that box and out of George Kovalenko’s book!

However, I did feel the need to post one article during my "break." Nope, it wasn’t that I’ve gotten so fed up with editing that I needed to get back to my roots for a bit. And I haven’t quite got the manuscript done.  No, I need to write this article because if I don’t, I know I’ll be calling the publisher to say "stop the presses!!"

The trouble (ok, not the trouble, but the snag that eventually unknits the entire sweater) started when I was disassembling my Nu-Point Repeater to reshoot some pictures of the inner workings, and when I did, another piece fell out and I realized I hadn’t quite taken it all the way apart:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

A Specific Interest in a General Pencil

When this bland little pencil turned up in a lot of random items online, I had to bite:

This plain-looking pencil even has a generic name on it – "General":

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

This One Doesn't Bug Me So Much

Maybe Joe’s right. Maybe I am a little bit Patrician crazy.

I mentioned awhile ago, while discussing the Sheaffer desk pencil, how desk pencils generally bug me. Heck, they don’t even fit on the same shelves or the same drawers as all my other pencils! But when this one popped up in an online auction, I just couldn’t resist:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

And Real Colorful, Too

Realite was a Chicago company established as a separate concern in late 1921. Here’s an Realite advertisement from the November, 1922 edition of Office Appliances:

As Autopoint fanatic Jim Stauffer recently documented, Realite purchased the Autopoint Company in 1923 and the combined company was renamed Autopoint Products Co. and later simply Autopoint Company. But that doesn’t mean the new Autopoint Company abandoned the Realite name entirely – in fact, it maintained the brand for decades after the merger and made some really interesting pencils in spectacular colors I’ve not seen elsewhere.

Take this one, for example – it was the last purchase I made at the Baltimore Show this year, and it was cheap since it was missing the cap (fortunately, I keep a few duplicates of these on hand just for such an emergency):

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

At Least It's Where The Sun Don't Shine

Last August at the DC Show, Joe Nemecek sold me a Parker Bridge set, which included the bases for all four suits, one of which was boxed and included the correct pencil:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

Re-memo These?

Back in January, I wrote about a Ross-Memo pencil I’d picked up when I went to a boat and RV show ("Take a Memo – Pencils Are Everywhere," January 23, 2012):

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.

They Get Ugly

A while back, Matt McColm asked me if I wanted a couple more All-Rite pencils, one black and the other blue. I do get a kick out of the All-Rites, which were made in Hackensack, New Jersey and put out quite a few campy magazine ads in the middle 1950s (see "They Really Were . . . All Right, That Is" on May 13, 2012). The company was purchased by the Eagle Pencil Company around 1964 or 1965.

At first, I declined, because I have a black and a blue one:

To learn more, this full article is included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 2, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else you buy books, or you can order a copy signed by yours truly through the Legendary Lead Company HERE.