These Shur Were The Best They Made

We pencil guys – particularly we pencil guys who have to take everything apart to see how these things work – just love the Shur-Rite.  Most of the time they are pretty ordinary looking metal pencils, until you pull them apart to see just how ingenious they are:

Early examples are marked “Pat. Applied For,” which is a reference to Julius Swanberg’s original patent application of November 10, 1919, which was issued on June 14, 1921 as number 1,381,517 and assigned to “Fabart Instrument Company, a Corporation of Illinois."

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.

Baby Bear Finally Stops By

A few years ago I found this one at a pen show.  It’s been so long I don’t even remember which one:

What attracted me to it was that it has an enameled and faceted barrel – a combination I hadn’t seen before – and the condition of the enamel is about a 9 out of 10, with just a little chipping next to the clip:

Best of all, since it was missing the cap I got it for next to nothing.  What a deal, I was thinking to myself.  I’ve got tons of these at home,, and I’ll just switch the cap from a common round example.  Right?

Wrong.

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.

Good Thing I'm Crazy

Joe Nemecek thought I was out of my mind to chase this one:

Pretty rough, he thought. Yeah, he’s right, but it was the first time I’d seen an Eversharp checking pencil in black enamel. As an aside, I did finally track down a navy blue one a few months ago:

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.

Rex Repaired

This article has been a long, long time coming.

Every time I circle back around to talk about the Rex Manufacturing Company, I’m reminded how all of that research started with this pencil:

The pencil – or rather what was left of it – was proudly featured on page 125 of The Catalogue. Unfortunately, while it has served valiantly as a great conversation piece, it has not been able to serve as well as a pencil:

In all the years I’ve had this little guy, I haven’t tried to repair it for one simple reason: I’m a stickler for originality and correctness, and I won’t do anything to restore a pencil unless I’m absolutely certain I am bringing it back to its original condition.

This Rex pencil is obviously different from its later progeny.  Here it is, shown next to the Gold Medal I was discussing just the other day (“Rex Redux” on July 23, 2013), with the earlier single piece tip and only the McNary 1924 patent date imprinted on it.

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 Very Accommodating Listo

I ran across this one at the Philadelphia Pen Show last January:

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.

Something I Wasn't Expecting

My expectations aren’t very high when I go to a general antique show, which is part of the fun. Once in a blue moon, I’ll find something really eye-popping, and without thousands of other eye-poppers around (like you’ll find at pen shows), those gems stand out like ten-foot-tall neon signs.

This is not about one of those finds.

No, what’s great about attending your run-of-the-mill antique show or flea market is that I tend to look more closely at mildly interesting things that might not even cause a blip on my radar at a pen show. Maybe I’m hungrier for something interesting to look at, or maybe with less to look at I’m just more focused, but whatever the cause, I pick up some interesting tidbits that way.

Take these two pencils, for example:

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.

Rex Redux

When this one showed up in an online auction, I got so much more than I bargained for:

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.