Witness for the Prosecution

Step one: observe. Step two: compare those observations to what you know. Step three: draw reasonable conclusions. That process always serves me well.

Still, when one of those reasonable conclusions runs contrary to a bit of our collective lore, I often get some pushback. We grow fond of the stories that are passed down to us, even when they are ludicrous – often out of the love and respect we have for the people from whom we heard those stories. If you said George Parker came out with ringtop Duofolds in pastel moire colors because he was really the Easter Bunny, you could do so with a straight face by prefacing that statement with “Fultz once said .  . ..” 

No, Michael Fultz never said any such thing. That’s intended as a tribute to how much I respect the man and how much influence he still has today.

When it came to the conclusions I drew regarding Wahl-marked Skyline pens (“A Better, Simpler Explanation” on October 18, 2025), I was bucking the time-honored story that the newly-minted Eversharp, Inc. slapped the Wahl name on a few Skylines just to preserve the exclusive rights to the Wahl name. 

That never made much sense to me – from my own experience, when I purchased the assets of the failed Autopoint Company, I didn’t pursue Autopoint’s trademarked names – I renamed my existing Legendary Lead Company the Legendary Pencil Company. Many people have asked me why I didn’t want the Autopoint name, and I tell them all the same thing: Autopoint failed because it wasn’t paying anybody, including its landlord. My name was better than theirs. 

Wahl was in the same boat in 1939, facing threats from the Federal Trade Commission, angry shareholders and litigation. Putting the Wahl name on a new Eversharp Inc. product would only paint a target on the new company’s back.

To my surprise, “A Better, Simpler Explanation” was well received. Several collectors looked at their Wahl-marked Skylines pens and without exception, everyone saw the same thing I was seeing: Wahl markings on the back of the clip for no apparent reason as well as on the front. All reached the same conclusion I did, that the Skyline was introduced before the first advertisements for them appeared in 1940, and before Wahl reorganized into Eversharp, Inc.

A Wahl catalog or official Wahl announcement would provide the concrete proof, but none are known as of this writing. No matter how reasonable the conclusion is, even if beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s a circumstantial case.  If only there was some hard, primary evidence . . .

No, I didn’t do this on purpose, although the timing couldn’t have been better. Janet and I trekked over to Springfield last weekend to browse an antique mall we had not visited for some time, and one display case had this in it:

The slots are narrower, suggesting this case was intended for pencils rather than fountain pens, and the glass is acid-etched with words, including one that shouldn’t be there:

“Wahl Eversharp Skyline.” That is as clear a pronouncement as you could want that the Skyline was introduced in 1939 or very early 1940, before The Wahl Company ceased to exist. But wait . . . there’s more . . . the smaller text beneath the main title is extremely difficult to make out, but I was able to decipher it with a loupe:

“Super Flex    Full Flex    Medium Flex   Oxford   Demi”

The word “Oxford” is the one that stands out, because the name is one the Wahl Company used for its inexpensive lines during the 1930s; there is no evidence that Eversharp, Inc. ever used the name after the merger.

And wait . . . there’s even more . . . 

On the top edge of the case, the dealer who originally used this case put handwritten stickers on the top of the lid, so that a salesman could see the model numbers and prices without opening the case for the customer on the other side of the counter. Of course there is no direct evidence that these stickers were there in 1939, rather than stuck on there by some random person for some random reason at some random time over the last 75 years or so. However, I’ll tell you why I do believe they were put there in 1939 – and this is where things get really interesting. 

The stickers read:

#162 / $1.00

#8 / 108 / $7.36

#72 / 172 / $1.25

#72X / $1.25

#162 / $1.40

#165 / $1.50

#106 / (unreadable)

#166 / $1.40

These appear to be Skyline model numbers – almost. Skyline fountain pens had two-digit model numbers, and the pencil used the same numbers with the addition of a leading number 1.Therefore, for example, a standard length Modern Stripe Skyline pen was Model 75 and the matching pencil was model 175.

Chapter Fifteen in Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry, includes a comprehensive taxonomy of Skyline configurations and model designations compiled from period catalog materials and surviving examples with price stickers. The model numbers for nearly every surviving variant has been identified.

Not a single one of the model numbers on this display case matches what we know to exist. Each of these numbers, though, is tantalizingly close. Models 160 and 161 were demi and standard-size Presentation Skylines, respectively, with ribbed, gold-filled upper barrels. Models 162, 165, and 166, however, are unknown.

Models 170 and 171 were demi and standard-size “Presentation Vertical” Skylines, respectively, with their gold-filled upper barrels adorned with lines running lengthwise rather than around the barrel. Models 174 and 175 were the demi and standard-size “Modern Stripe” (nicknamed “moire” by collectors) – the 1940 price sheet on page 336 in Eversharp added a suffix of B, G, or S to denote the color (blue, green, or silver grey). 

Model 172 and Model 72 (presumably, the matching fountain pen) are unknown, and the possible existence of a Model 72X pen is really exciting. Other known Skyline models with a letter suffix denoted special barrel materials: Model 78P was the unicorn all-Platinum pen, Model 78SY was the Command Performance pen in solid 14k gold, Model 78Y denoted a gold-filled cap and barrel, and Model 78W had a stainless cap.

The sterling-capped Skyline, like the one from that earlier article, has not been documented with an official model number; perhaps X designated sterling, although I’d think if that were true it would be Model 78X, not Model 72X. Maybe it was something else; since it only cost $1.25, it likely wasn’t any other expensive material – maybe it was the brown Modern Stripe, since “B” was already occupied by the color blue. Who knows – maybe these stickers set doorbuster prices to clear out old Wahl models after the reorganization. 

Then there’s that crazy #8 / 108 designation, which appears to have been $7.36 for a pen and pencil set (if I’m reading the handwriting correctly). Models 100, 101, 102, and 103 were lower-tier press-clip models meant for utilitarian use, and press-clip pens were “especially for grade school use” (see page 348 in Eversharp for the advertisement which documents this).  There was no Model 108, according to my research, and there was no Model 106, either. I’ve never seen a sticker on a press-clip pen – not surprising, since they were made to be abused and nearly every example I’ve seen was ridden hard and put away wet. Whatever this was, it was more expensive than anything known in the 100 series of Skylines.

Here is my theory, based on comparing these observations to what we know. The consolidation into Eversharp, Inc. was in the works for a year before it was consummated in early 1940. The Skyline was already well into development, and it was likely test-marketed by Wahl to be sure it would be a tremendous success for the newly-formed company.

The main reason for the reorganization was for Wahl to escape all of the obligations that were dragging the company down – one substantial obligation was the company’s repair obligations pursuant to its double-check lifetime warranty. Perhaps the model designations for the Skylines were already planned before the reorganization, but for Wahl's test marketing purposes, Wahl used different model numbers to differentiate those pens and pencils which the new company would have no warranty obligation to repair.

Yes, I know that part is conjecture – a reasonable conclusion, based on comparing what we observe here to what we already know. Now, as all of my Eversharp fans in the peanut gallery digest this article and look more closely at the examples they have, our challenge is to determine if there are stickered examples that bear any of these mystery model numbers to see if this conjecture is ultimately proven correct.

A few notes of caution as we undertake this new challenge: first, the fountain pens had price bands on their barrels, and to my knowledge all of the caps are interchangeable. Other than “junk box provenance,” there is no way to know whether the cap on a banded barrel is original to the pen. Finding a barrel with a price band of “72X” would be exciting, but not conclusive. Pencils, on the other hand, had one-piece barrel, so a pencil marked “172X” would be the clincher to tell us what the matching fountain pen looked like.

There’s another caution on the pencils, though: my previous article discussed the name “Wahl” stamped on the back of the fountain pen clips, as well as on the front. I went through my stash of Model 174 and 175 modern stripe (or “moire”) Skyline pencils, which from what we know were introduced at the outset – they are either marked “Eversharp Skyline” or they have no markings at all.

Again, this is just a theory: perhaps the pre-reorganization Skyline pencils lacked this stamp to indicate they were not made by Eversharp, Inc.

I continue to hold out hope that documents will one day surface to answer all of these questions once and for all. Until then, please observe and report. I’m reminded of a great quote by Tommy Lee Jones in the 1997 film, Men in Black: “1,500 years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat. And fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.” 

More Fine Snails

The “snail” pattern is ubiquitous among Victorian makers; in “In the Company of Fine Snails” (February 15, 2018: Volume 5, page 152), I presented desk pencils with that sort of treatment made by Mabie Todd, Hicks, and Fairchild & Johnson. There were a few snails in that recent collection I recently purchased from Rob Bader, too.

The example at top is an ordinary magic pencil made by W.S. Hicks – nothing extraordinary, but very clean. It bears that acorn mark I have theorized indicated it was made by the Hicks firm for wholesale to retailers.

The second pencil down is also made by Hicks, but it has an interesting “twist.” 

The nose is fixed in position. The back can be pulled out as an extender, and twisting it advances and retracts the lead; the Eagle Pencil Company did something similar. Like the first one, this one also bears the Hicks acorn:

The next pencil down advances into position by twisting the back half of the barrel; this is the pencil part of John Mabie’s ubiquitous patent 11,762 issued on October 3, 1854, but without the nib slider found on Mabie Todd patented combination pens and pencils. It’s a chunky hunk o’ sterling, but the reason I wanted to keep it in the collection is because it bears a mark I don’t see very often:

In “Two Hallmarks, Two Connections” (June 29, 2021: Volume 7, page 227), I showed another pencil with a similar mark, which was picked up in the 1904 edition of Trade-Marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades as a state-protected mark by Ephraim S. Johnson & Co.

Whenever I find that sideways J in a diamond, it is flanked by the numbers 925 and 1000, denoting sterling silver. Typically, that appears on pencils made for export to the European market, but their near universal presence on Johnson pencils suggests that Johnson was simply adding a bit of continental flair to his hallmark. 

This next item isn’t a pencil at all. It is an empty container with a threaded cap – its dimensions suggest that it might be a thermometer holder. I kept it because of the hallmark on both the cap and the barrel:

The Hutcheon Brothers mark isn’t surprising on a snail-patterned piece, since Mabie Todd was a prolific user of this pattern and Hutcheon was named for Alfred G. Hutcheon, who left Mabie Todd but retained an unusually close relationship with his former firm; see “House of Hutcheon” published October 15, 2025. 

The last example isn’t quite the same level of quality; the pattern is less refined, and a couple spots of wear reveal it is plated brass rather than sterling. Still, a desk pencil like this is quite the step up from its maker’s usual fare:

The Eagle Pencil Company was a pioneer in producing less expensive writing instruments that had the look of something more exclusive – a wolf in snail’s clothing in this case.

The Friendly Reminder

Many of the pictures in my “to be written about” folder were taken so long ago, and they have spent so much time living rent-free in my head, that I’m sure that I had already written about them . . . so sure that when one of Gabriel’s care packages had a Seth Crocker pencil in it, I was convinced I would be updating a previous article and picking up where I left off.

I was absent longer than expected to write the Sheaffer and Eversharp books, and a few years later, I had circled back around to find good and bad news. Bad news first: Gabriel’s example of the Seth Crocker is a duplicate of an example I have: it’s a black two-band example, just like the one at top here:

No worries about that, though – should a Seth Crocker limp into the museum in a really wild color but missing a thing or two, it will be good to have one that can share custody of its bits and pieces. As I compared it to what was in my photo archive, I stumble across some pictures of another one, which David Nishimura had brought to the Baltimore show several years ago.

The good news was that Gabriel’s example nudged me to take a few do-over shots of this one; what was in my head never made it onto paper because the photos I shot did not turn out as well as I hoped, and with those updated pictures I can push this one across the finish line. The clip on this one is marked “Sears” rather than the usual Seth Crocker:

I believe “Sears” is a reference to Seth Chilton Crocker’s father, Seth Sears Crocker, owner of the original Crocker Pen Company – a happy coincidence that likely didn’t sit well with Sears, Roebuck & Co. See “It Isn’t a Race, But If It Were . . .” (June 14, 2020: Volume 6, page 185). Joe Nemecek has a Sears-marked Seth Crocker, shown on page 187, but his has the typical three narrow trim bands. This Sears has a little something extra:

Despite the deluxe trim, there’s no imprint on the barrel, but removing the nose reveals that it has the same mechanism inside.

The Seth Crocker pencil was designed by Ambrose Fleming: his patent 1,886,333 was applied for on May 12, 1931 and was issued November 1, 1932; see “The Patent Book Passes a Harsh Test (November 4, 2014: Volume 3, page 84):

Page one of the drawings isn’t particularly helpful, but there’s a couple figures on page two of the specifications which clearly show the Seth Crocker’s unique internal lead tray.

At that same Baltimore Show, George Rimakis tracked me down with a little pile of goodies he’d set aside for me, including these two:

At the time, I had recently written about the “Pencil Knife” in “What They Looked Like and Why Most Don’t” (May 30, 2021), and I thought these might be a little less “knifey” version, with that distinctive lower trim band.

Alas, there isn’t enough there to connect the two - the placement of the trim band is all that the two have in common. On the Pencil Knife, that’s just the joint where the top pulls off, and it has a conventional nose-drive mechanism. George’s pencils, however, have tips that unscrew to reveal something far less conventional.

Hmm . . . a nose that unscrews to reveal a weird mechanism . . . 

On a hunch, I browsed American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2: 1911-1945 to see if Ambrose Fleming designed any other pencils. He’s credited with nine inventions in the book for patents issued between 1921 and 1932, with the Seth Crocker pencil being the last of them. One of his earlier inventions was patent 1,674,357, applied for on March 22, 1926 and issued on June 19, 1928.

That’s it.

There’s no markings on George’s pencils - no branding and no “Pat. Pend.” or other information. In 1928, when Fleming’s earlier patent was issued, the Crocker/Chilton saga was at a transition point: the Crocker Pen Manufacturing Company (in its later years, under the direction of the colorful George Zain) had failed in 1926. The Chilton Pen Company was formed in 1926 by Seth Chilton Crocker; his father Seth Sears Crocker died in 1927.  Seth Chilton Crocker was then given the boot from Chilton in 1932, at which time he formed the Seth Crocker Pen Company. See “Three Missing Years” (June 15, 2020: Volume 6, page 187).

That is a lot going on in a few short years. This story continues to inch forward one step at a time, and now I would like to learn more about our man Ambrose Fleming: no, I don’t think he’s the same guy as John Ambrose Fleming, the English inventor, and I don’t know what if any relationship our Ambrose had to Seth Chilton Crocker, Chilton, or the Seth Crocker Pen Company. 

Are George’s pencils “Seth Crocker” pencils? It’s possible, but I don’t think so, because they are not so marked. Maybe he was an independent inventor who sold his last invention to Seth Crocker, and maybe there is more to be learned about the story.

Bullets and Flowers

No, I still have no idea what my “favorite” pencil is out of the more than 20,000 in the museum. Heck, I couldn’t even tell you which one of the pencils Gabriel Goldsmith has sent me over the last couple months is my favorite, since each has its own merits. 

That being said . . . at least out of Gabriel’s stuff . . . it’s this one.

“Bullet pencil” typically refers to those cartridge-shaped holders containing a reversible wood pencil mounted on the rear end of the “bullet.” This is a more convincing representation of a rifle cartridge, other than the ringtop at the end, with a nose-operated leadholder clutch at the business end (sort of like those Mabie Magazine pencils from a few days ago). The back end extends for more comfortable writing, and it has an American hallmark:

What looks like an H in brackets identifies the pencil as made by George W. Heath & Co.  The mark is included in American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, but not as a federally registered trademark; it is included in the appendix, which excerpts the writing instrument trademarks included in various editions of Trade-Marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades. The Heath mark was first listed in the 1904 edition:

Before I got around to writing this one up, David Nishimura and I had partnered on that Victorian collection from Rob Bader and two other Heath pencils found their way into my pile. I offered them to David first, since Heath is a special interest of his, and I was surprised he didn’t claim them:

At top is one that is near and dear to my heart: Heath advertised these as its “new clutch pencil for insurance men” in 1912, as detailed on page 42 in Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry.

The reason I like these so much is because shortly after Heath introduced these, Charles Keeran darkened Heath’s doorstep and hired the firm to make his first Ever Sharp (it was two words in those days) pencils. Heath simply retrofitted these clutch pencils to accept Keeran’s screw drive mechanism, and the rest is history. 

I didn’t have a plain gold filled example, and this one is just pristine. The “G.W.H. Co.” mark is only visible when the top is unscrewed a bit to release the lead:

I thought I might have overestimated David’s interest in these until David Yager stopped by my table later during that DC show to chat. Yager had a tray of Heath pencils for show and tell, and Nishimura’s eyes lit up like a kid who just got his first ten-speed for Christmas when he saw them.

Alas, these were for show and tell only, and I’m just glad to get a reasonably good cell phone photograph to share. Most of these are Heath clutch pencils, including the three more scarce short versions at left. The three with steel tips at right are early Ever Sharp pencils made by Heath.

The other Heath pencil that came from Rob’s collection is that high-relief magic pencil. I knew I had something along those lines at the museum, but this is the sort of thing that you don’t turn away even if it’s a duplicate. I was glad to find when I got home that the new addition was related to but very different from the one I had.

As I was writing this up, I stumbled across something in my notes – Nishimura posted a nice article about George W. Heath & Co. at his blog which included a link to an advertisement for Heath’s magic pencils. I had seen the ad before, but at a website that didn’t fully attribute its source – thanks to David’s link, here it is, as published in The Jeweler’s Circular on August 20, 1902. 

The advertisement matches the pattern on the one at bottom and identifies it as Model 905M. I would suspect that the other had a different designation, but until a detailed Heath catalog emerges, that bit of esoterica will have to wait. 

Both of these magic pencils also have Heath’s hallmark on the extender; while I previously indicated the Heath mark was first reported in the 1904 edition of Trade-Marks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades, we know from the advertisement that it was in use earlier. Also, since the 1896 edition of the book was so rudimentary, I can’t rule out that Heath might have used this mark even earlier and perhaps from the outset, when the firm was first established in 1892.

After I shot these images for this article, I was disappointed that they did not do justice to Heath’s craftsmanship, since the fine engraving on the bullet pencil was obscured by the patina.

“W.W.D.D.,” I thought to myself – as in what would David Nishimura do. First, do no harm. Second, don’t overclean, because sterling is soft enough that the detail I want to reveal can be worn down as quickly and easily as Lady Liberty’s flowing hair on a silver coin as it rattles around in your pocket. Carefully, carefully . . .

Now THAT’s what I wanted to show you.

Three Steps Forward, Four Steps Back

I discussed this weird series of Eversharp pencils on page 152 in Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry:

These share elements of the crown top models which came a little before them, and the “Signature-style” series that came after.

But . . . note that the Signature-style pencil at bottom in the previous image has a steel tip, which means it has the 1924 improved Eversharp mechanism. The pencils in this series have gold filled tips, which signify that inside is what we commonly refer to as the “Equipoised” mechanism, developed around 1929 and first used on the Signature-style series, then carried forward on the Equipoised line in 1929 and on the Doric in 1931.

That’s what makes this series really weird: the timing doesn’t make sense. Wahl ditched the stodgy old gold-filled crown top models in favor of the Signature-style line in 1927, then took another leap forward with a new mechanism in 1929 . . . and then turned around and briefly reintroduced another crown top model. The experiment was an expensive one: since none of the parts on these, other than the tips, are interchangeable with anything else Wahl made at the time, we know the company created special tooling for them. Given how few of these have survived, Wahl likely never recouped the investment. 

Wahl fascinates me because it thrived in spite of itself, and it also fascinates me how difficult this series is proving to complete. I’ve found examples in smooth black celluloid, Grecian Border chased black, Rosewood hard rubber, and Jade. There are three sizes: a short ringtop, a short military-clip version, and a full length version. There should be one of everything. Unless, of course,  there wasn’t. 

I did an indiscreet happy dance when I found a ringtop version in jade, bringing me one step closer to that “aaaaaahhh” moment. No worries that it was missing the tip, I thought . . . I have spare tips.

Of course it wasn’t as simple as that. There’s something to know about Equipoised-mechanism Eversharp pencils before you assume a tip is just being stubborn and it needs more muscle to remove it: these tips are reverse-threaded. Someone had really put their back into this one, snapping the threaded part off inside the end of the barrel. To make matters worse, since the tip is what holds the mechanism inside the barrel, there was no way to remove it.

And then, things got even worse. I thought I had redeemed myself when I found another example hiding in the weeds in an online auction – but no:

Great. Now I have two of these . . . one with a perfect mechanism I can’t remove, and one with a mechanism that is toast. Dagnabbit.

That reverse threading had been the source of my frustration, but it also proved to be my salvation. An 1/8" drill bit perfectly fit inside the barrel, and the teeth were able to sink into the soft brass just enough . . . lefty tighty, righty loosey and all.

Whew, I thought as I prepared to reshoot my series one step closer to completion. All I need to do is find a black or rosewood military clip example, and I can swap out the parts to have all three configurations in jade.

I need to quit thinking. Yes, I found a military clip example, but no . . . there is no way in God’s green earth that I am going to start swapping parts. Dagnabbit again, but in a good way:

My friend Robert Lott at Five Star Pens included both of these in an online auction of Eversharp pencils - I haven’t seen Rob for years, since he lives in one of the Dakotas and it just got too expensive for him to attend shows, but I did get to spend some time with his brother Rich at the Ohio Pen Show last weekend. 

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that one of these would pop up in Wahl’s coral, since most of the weird things Wahl did seem to happen in that color - in particular, Wahl apparently used up leftover coral parts in 1939, cobbling things together and offloading them in preparation for the company’s reorganization into Eversharp, Inc. in 1940. See “The Weirdness of Coral” (April 23, 2021: Volume 7, page 57).

I’ve added two members to this disfunctional family, but for those two steps forward, I took two steps back – now I’m looking for military clip and full length examples in coral.

Speaking of coral, there’s two things to notice about that other coral Eversharp that came from Rob Lott’s auction. First, that color is just more . . . wild than what I’m used to seeing.

Then there is the top end treatment. The end of the cap has been tapered slightly, to void the recess into which the trim ring is usually fitted on the Signature-style series.

I’ve seen that treatment before on Eversharps along these lines but again, not in coral.

Here’s the new addition in the company of my other tapered, short cap, Equipoised-mechanism pencils, all of which I believe were assembled in 1939 in preparation for the reorganization. Second from top is one of those mysterious “X-seal” Eversharps – see page 312 in Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry. At bottom are two marked “Oxford” on the clip – one is a duplicate (with a less clear imprint on the clip), but as rare as they are I’ll keep both for now.

Good Lord . . . three new Eversharp variants added, suggesting that there are four others out there somewhere. It never ends.