It Would Have Been So Much Easier Had I Known This!

Sometimes you just know the answer is out there somewhere.  It has to be.  People didn’t just turn out these pencils by the hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, work as hard as they could to sell them, and then vanish without a trace.

One of the shadowy figures I’ve been researching for years is Samuel Kanner, the assignee of the original patent (and inventor of the improved patent) for the “Presto” repeater pencils.  I even have his personal demonstrator Presto in my collection:

Doubtless it was Kanner behind the wheel, guiding his repeating pencils into the slimmer “Everfeeds” made by the Gilfred Corporation, eventually squaring off against Eversharp in the patent infringement case in which Gilfred claimed Eversharp stole his design for Eversharp’s repeating pencils (see “My Find of the Year” on December 31, 2011 at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-find-of-year.html):

From the top, that’s a later Presto, a Gilfred, an Everfeed, and an Eversharp Doric repeater.  Unfortunately for Kanner, Eversharp won the infringement case in 1942, convincing the judge that since the Kanner mechanism wasn’t significantly different from a repeating mechanism patented in the nineteenth century, Kanner’s patent was therefore invalid.

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.

Two's a Coincidence . . . Or Is It?

Frank Hoban had two of these at the DC show a few weeks ago, and I bought both of them:

What a great imprint these have: “Belmont Handy-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.

Come Together

At the DC show a few weeks ago, this set caught my eye on Jean Buchser’s table.  The price was fair, but since the price included one of those pesky pens I don’t collect, I asked if I could borrow it for a few photographs:

The clip on the pen reads “The Union Pen,” while the matching pencil is marked “Unity” crowned by the letter U in a wreath:

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.

Underrated

Joe Nemecek sent me an email directing me to this one in an online auction and told me that I needed to get one of these, and he promised me that it wouldn’t cost me very much:

By the time I got around to reading his email, the auction had closed, and no one had even made the measly opening bid of $2.99.  I had to agree that the pencil was pretty neat, so I emailed the seller to see if he planned to relist the item.  He did – and I immediately placed a twenty-dollar bid on the thing.

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.

Eversharp's Symphonies

The Eversharp Symphony is discussed on page 77 of The Catalogue, and it is usually found in three flavors:

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.

Back to the Drawing Board

It’s not all that unusual for me to learn that I’ve gotten something wrong here.  Most of the time, I’m throwing things out there in the hopes that someone out there will read what I’ve written and have the missing piece of the puzzle that says “nuh uh.”   I never mind.  This is all new stuff, and at the end of the day, I figure it was worth it if I learned something.

What is unusual is when I’m the one that finds that piece and I get to say “nuh uh” to myself (and therefore, to you).  This is one of those stories, and it begins with something that has nothing to do with pencils – or should I say, almost nothing.  The only thing today’s find has to do with pencils is the fact that I – a pencil collector – happen to collect other things, as well.  Those who have visited my pencil museum are often surprised to see what fills the display case under my lead displays:

That’s the back half of Truman the cat, my faithful companion at the museum, who had to swoop in for a closer look at my collection of vintage stapling machines the instant I opened the cabinet to take this picture.  I haven’t written a book about these things yet, but it’s on my bucket list.  A lot of ingenuity went into these things, and if it weren’t for the fact that they are so big and so heavy, I’d probably have quite a few more of them. . .

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.

Nice Threads!

Stuart Hawkinson stopped by my table with this one during the DC show.  He warned me that he was keeping this one before he showed it to me,  but he said he thought I might want to have a look at it.  You are correct, sir!

Doesn’t look much like a pencil, does it?  That is, until you unscrew the top and pull out what’s inside:

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.