The Leadhead's Pencil Blog

Friday, January 22, 2016

A Few More Hollands Along the Way

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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A few months ago I was visiting with my friend Jack Leone, and he let me photograph his John Holland pencils:

These are all made by the Rex Manufacturing Company in the late 1920s (I’ve written several articles about these oversized pencils with four patent dates on them – the “four horsemen” patents, I call them. See http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/03/prequel-lets-make-that-birth-death-and.html for a rundown on the patent history).

John Holland was unique among Rex’s customers in two respects. First, you’ll note that a few of Jack’s pencils have colored “beanies” mounted on the tops:

From what I can tell, these were purely decorative. Note the different patent dates on the caps of these examples. Holland was also different in its choice of colors: white and robins’ egg blue are found, to my knowledge, only on Rex pencils marked John Holland.

They also used an interesting pinkish, salmony color on their ringtops - these are also Jack’s:

These are on the early end of the “four horsemen” era, marked patent applied for but exhibiting characteristics of Charles Patton’s design patented on August 4, 1925.

Writing about the Franklin this week – another brand in the Rex Manufacturing Company, and an early member of the fraternity, to boot – reminded me to circle back around to subject of John Holland, because I’ve picked up a couple of things which add to this story:

The robins’ egg blue one turned up at the Michigan Show in October, and the moment I saw that color, I knew what it was:

John Holland. Note how similar it is to the Franklin, with the same ring top and that distinctive rib on the nose cone:

And then there’s that all-metal pencil, behind which is a funny story. I was at the Springfield Extravaganza last summer - it’s a huge production, half antique show and half flea market, that takes Janet and I two days to properly tour. I saw this one in a glass case among a bunch of costume jewelry and because you can’t tell much about pencils like these without examining them up close, and when I did I knew I’d need to have it:

It’s an even earlier, all-metal Rex-made John Holland. It also had an interesting and very deliberate “X” on the barrel, the reasons for which I haven’t a clue:

There was a problem, though: although there was no price tag, and this was the only pencil this guy had amongst all that junk, when I asked him how much he wanted for it he said, without hesitation, forty-five bucks.

Now if I were at a pen show, and a knowledgeable pencil collector had a price tag of $45 on this one, because he and I both knew this might be the earliest Rex-made John Holland pencil yet to surface, I wouldn’t have batted an eye about paying it.

But at a flea market where I’m used to paying a couple bucks, maybe ten at most? From a guy who doesn’t know beans about what this is, other than that it’s something someone might think is valuable enough to help him fill up his gas tank for the ride home? The nerve of some people!

So at first, I didn’t buy it. I stewed about the injustice of it all. I though about that pencil for the rest of the day . . . and I stewed about it overnight . . .

And the next morning, I picked my way through hundreds of dealer tables back to that guy. It was still forty five dollars. There wasn’t an ounce of give in this guy.

I paid it.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Flash in a Pan

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Note: this is the third article in a three-part series. The link to the first part of this series is at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/01/was-this-beginning-or-end.html.

There were three players in the Shur-Rite story: the Fabert Instrument Company, to whom Julius Swanberg’s patents were assigned; the Sandfelder Corporation, which was the producer of the pencils; and of course, the Shur-Rite Pencil Company. The earliest reference I could find to any of these entities is in June, 1921, which doesn’t make much sense: Shur-Rites marked “patent applied for” or with the application date of November 10, 1919 are as common as those marked with the actual patent date of June 14, 1921, so we know these pencils were made before then.

Another thing that doesn’t make sense is that this first reference suggests that the company was already established:

In June, 1921, the same month in which S.N. Sandfelder was back in his office, the earliest advertisement I could find for the Shur-Rite was published in The Allen Monthly:

The American Stationer reported on the introduction of the “new” Shur-Rite Junior on July 2, 1921, which also doesn’t make sense: Junior models are also found marked patent applied for:

A notice in the September 28, 1921 issue of The Jewelers’ Circular provides us with a couple more names associated with the Shur-Rite Pencil Company: George A. Armstrong, Milton Sandfelder, Harry Berblinger, Sidney L. Bauman and J. Frank Kissick:

All indications from this notice are that business was going gangbusters for the new company - on October 19, 1921, Shur-Rite had a full-page advertisement in The Jewelers’ Circular:

That same month, Armstrong, Berblinger and Kissick set off to divide and conquer across the country:

Shur-Rite’s advertising really kicked into high gear in 1922, with advertisements in Good Hardware, Allen Monthly and, most notably, in several advertisements in The Saturday Evening Post:

Also in 1922, the Bostwick-Braun Company of Toledo included in its catalog the full line of Shur-Rite pencils, showing just how extensive the company’s offerings became in such a short time:

Then, just as things were taking off, the wheels came off the proverbial bus. By the end of 1922, surplus Shur-Rites are showing up in discount advertisements. The Order of Railroad Telegraphers acquired a large surplus order, had them fitted with ORT logos, and advertised them for sale to members in The Railroad Telegrapher throughout 1922:

On January 3, 1923, The Jewelers’ Circular referred to Kissick and Berblinger as “former representatives of the Sandfelder Corp.”

The epitaph for Shur-Rite appears to have been its legal victory of Salz Brothers. When Salz attempted to register “Salrite” as a trademark, Shur-Rite successfully objected – one of the few times Salz (which had a reputation for copying others) was called out for deliberately trying to profit from someone else’s good name:

And then . . . without a trace . . . the company vanishes.

Almost. Feeling a little ripped off yet that I haven’t explained those Shur-Rite lead tubes with “Franklin Automatic Pencil” lead labels glued over them?

I think I have found the answer. A prominent Boston Stationer, Thorp & Martin, had only recently moved to Franklin Street in Boston when this article about the firm was published in late 1920:

“By this move to Franklin Street, the Thorp & Martin came into what might be termed a “stationers’ row” of Boston, with [Samuel] Ward’s nearly opposite and the Fairbanks Company at the head of the thoroughfare,” this writeup concludes. Later reports proudly refer to the company as “Thorp & Martin of Franklin Street,” as if the location made them a real contender in the stationers’ world – such as this one from June, 1921, announcing among other things, that the company “had secured control of the entire sale in New England of the Shur-Rite pencil”:

The following month, Walden’s Stationer reported that the company was the “exclusive distributors” of the Shur-Rite. I believe this was intended to mean in New England only, as advertisements with addresses including other sales offices were published later:

Could Thorp & Martin have glued “Franklin Automatic Pencil” labels over leftover stock of Shur-Rite leads after the Shur-Rite Pencil Co. disappeared? Did Thorp & Martin decide to develop their own house brand of pencils, which they chose to name the “Franklin” in honor of their new, prestigious location on Boston’s “stationers’ row?” I believe they did, and if the evidence presented so far doesn’t convince you, here’s another detail that might help. It comes from the notice published concerning the death of Thorp & Martin’s president, Richard D. Knight, from the April 15, 1922 edition of The American Stationer:

Mr. Knight, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island, was president of a printing firm, Livermore & Knight, of Providence, in addition to serving as president of Thorp & Martin. Livermore & Knight’s operations were located at 42 Pine Street, in Providence’s “jewelry district,” a two-minute drive from 14 Imperial Place, Providence:

In 1922, though, it wasn’t called “Imperial Place.” The street was renamed when city leaders decided that “Blount Street” wasn’t an appropriate name for a street on which a prominent knife manufacturer was located (I guess it sounded too much like “blunt”). 14 Blount Street in Providence was the location of another manufacturer, the one which made the “Franklin” – the Rex Manufacturing Company.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Nothing's For Shur

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Note: in yesterday's article concerning the "Franklin" (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/01/was-this-beginning-or-end.html), I showed off some lead containers for the "Franklin Automatic Pencil." The paper labels were glued over Shur-Rite labels.

The Shur-Rite story is a bit of an anomaly in my book. The design was elegant, cheap and attractive. The publicity was nationwide. The product line numbered in the dozens. And yet, the company emerged in mid-1921 and was apparently gone by the end of 1922.

I still don’t know why it disappeared, but I think now I know where it went.

I last wrote about the Shur-Rite back in July of 2013 (the article is at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2013/07/these-shur-were-best-they-made.html). To summarize, Julius Swanberg was the inventor of the pencil, and he received two patents for the original and an improved design: number 1,381,517, applied for on November 10, 1919 and awarded June 14, 1921; and number 1,524,062, applied for on June 2, 1921 and awarded January 25, 1925:

Both of these patents were assigned to the Fabart Instrument Company, which according to the Illinois Secretary of State in 1922 was located at 1516 Goster Street, Chicago. The president was E.H. Fabric, and the secretary was R.C. Ritting:

I’ve had a few Shur-Rite pictures around, so I’ll clean them all out here. These first two are on the earlier end of things . . .

The ringtops have a distinctive wire bail - you can spot a Shur-Rite out in an online auction by that top alone:

The caps on these two are marked “Pat. Appl’d For”:

These also are marked patent applied for:

The usual Shur-Rite looks like this inside:

But these lack the pushrod portion:

One is a Shur-Rite Junior, with an exposed eraser:

And the other is marked only patent applied for – leaving me to question whether the pencils predated the company:

These next two are a little later . . . maybe . . .

The ringtop is marked “Pat. Nov. 10, 1919 / Other Pats. Pend’g.”:

You may have noticed a different top on the other example – the cap also has the November 10, 1919 date on it, but this one’s a Shur-Rite Junior:

The November 10, 1919 date was the application date for the first Swanberg patent – not the issue date. I’m not clear whether this was a mistake, or whether it was done on purpose, to imply a patent was issued prematurely. At some point, the error was corrected:

These are all marked with the correct patent date of June 14, 1921:

However, the gold-filled example is missing the Shur-Rite name:

This suggests that the pencils remained in production after the Shur-Rite Pencil Co. either ceased to exist or had sold the rights to the design.

And now, with that photo folder all cleaned out, I’ll explain the rest of what I've learned about the history of the company, and how I think the Shur-Rite might have been related to the Franklin from yesterday's article . . .

Note: the next chapter of this story is at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/01/flash-in-pan.html.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Was This the Beginning or the End?

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

I had never heard of a brand of pencil called the “Franklin” before this fall. Once I did, though, I wondered why no one else had appropriated the name of such a prominent American, particularly an inventor. Three examples surfaced, all from one online seller: a red hard rubber ringtop, a round black hard rubber side clip model, and a faceted black hard rubber ringtop. The side clip model has what appears to be an original sales tag on it:

None is marked with a patent date or any other indication as to who manufactured them:

I’ve got a pretty good idea, though. See that rib on each of the nose cones? That distinctive feature is found on early Rex Manufacturing Company pencils. Remember that little hard rubber Webster set from a while back?

The February 19, 1924 patent date refers to Lawrence T. McNary’s patent number 1,484,180:

I was content to add another member to the Rex Manufacturing Company’s credit. It bugged me a little wondering why there were no patent numbers or “Pat. Pend.” marks on any of these Franklins, but there are other Rex-made pencils which don’t, either – Supremacy and Artcraft, for example.

And then something else surfaced, which leaves me with a big loose end that bugs me a lot. A separate online seller has been selling these, five or so tubes at a time:

Since I had never heard of a Franklin pencil before, finding a nice stash of lead tubes for the “Franklin Automatic Pencil” was a nice add on - although it’s quite a coincidence to find this stash coming from another source. Ordinarily that would wrap things up nicely - pencils, patent and lead . . . what more could I want?

The tubes, you might notice, appear to have labels glued over another label. One of the ones that came with mine was loose, so I could flatten it out for this picture:

What’s interesting is what is underneath these labels:

Shur-Rite leads. Why is that interesting? I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

Note: the next installment is at http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/01/nothings-for-shur.html.