Crane's Manlier Side

One of the first articles I wrote here at the blog, back on November 10, concerned Newton Crane’s Self Sharpening Pencil Company and the partially stocked display case that turned up at a garage sale in Cambridge, Massachusetts just days after The Catalogue was published. At that time, these were the only examples of the pencil I’d ever seen, and all were painted in pastel colors.

But then along came Tanya Hiles with this one . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Like Taking Candy From Mr. Stough

"Wow. You don’t have a glass one."

Now that’s pretty high praise coming from Janet. I’ve shown her thousands of pencils over the years, and on many occasions tried to explain to her what makes this one or that one special, valuable or well, just pretty neat. Most of the time she’ll pat me on the head and say "of course it is, honey" or "I’ll take your word for it."

Or most often, "did you say something?"

Actually, it’s not quite like that. Just recently, I showed her a pencil and she said "Now, that’s a Skyline, right?" And she was. Coulda knocked me over with a feather!

But this time, she knew instantly that the pencil I was showing her, another from the Tanya Hile’s online offerings, was truly different from any of the thousands of others I’ve shown her . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Lamson Pencil Company

Here’s another from the "never heard of that one before" section of Tanya Hiles’ offerings.

This is an all metal pencil imprinted on the barrel "Pat. Nov. 22 ‘04 Pat. May 21 ‘07 The Lamson Pencil Co. Toledo, O." . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Lippincott Pencil Company

Here’s another from Tanya Hile’s parade of pencils, marked "Lippincott’s Push Point."

There were two of these up for auction. The other one was an earlier example and only had the November 1, 1898 patent date – I wasn’t the high bidder on that one, but this one, with patent dates of November 1, 1898 and April 7,1907, was the one in which I was more interested . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

Following In Someone's Footsteps

An online seller going by the name of "vintagestuffrox" listed this group of pencils in an auction a few weeks ago.

The seller didn’t appear to know very much about pencils, and this bunch obviously hadn’t been cared for very well. When I received them, all were very grimy and each had a stripe of blue paint on one side – not intentionally painted, but it appeared that they had laid next to each other in a garage or in some other dirty place where paint had been spilled. That was ok with me – the seller had disclosed the condition of them in the listing. I knew to expect it, and it isn’t anything a little simichrome won’t take right off. Besides, there is more to this than meets the eye.

This group of pencils sounded an alarm bell with me, that whoever had amassed this grouping knew exactly what they were doing. Check out these Dur-O-Lites . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

I Hear They Also Made Pens

Joe Nemecek brought a number of things for me to photograph at the DC Show. One of them I borrowed to bring home for some quality time.

This pristine example of a Carter’s "Coraltex" (that’s Carter’s name for it) ringtop pencil is in a really unusual purple color, and the graphics on the box are just beautiful.

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company

While We're At It . . .

On the subject of Eagles, I don’t remember who I got this one from in DC. It’s the red one, shown next to the Eagle "Gleam" pattern pencil from November 22 ("More Stars and Moons for the Constellation").

It clearly shares the same lines as the other "deco Eagles," as I call them, but it’s a little bit longer and the clip is set much lower on the barrel . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company