The Leadhead's Pencil Blog

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

From Bagley through Todd - Part Two

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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

Note: the first installment in this series was posted at https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/with-couple-twists.html.

On April 19, 1856, Albert G. Bagley, the gold pen and pencil manufacturer who was one of the pioneers in the industry through the 1840s, retired and headed west to St. Louis, leaving Henry Harrison Houghton and Charles F. Newton behind to continue the business he had created, under the name H.H. Houghton & Co. There would be several other partnerships before Edward Todd appeared on the scene in 1870.

H.H. Houghton & Co. advertised heavily in the New-York Tribune at the end of 1856:

Unfortunately, Houghton died suddenly at the age of 36 on October 27, 1857:

Charles F. Newton continue the business himself for a short time thereafter. He ran identical advertisements through the 1857 Christmas season, changing only the first line to indicate that C.F. Newton is the successor to Bagley, Houghton & Co.

At some point between 1855 and 1860, a man by the name of Keller Kurtz became a traveling salesman for Newton – or possibly for Houghton or Bagley. Kurtz was a Pennsylvanian who had opened a “Book, Stationery and Notion Store” in Gettysburg in 1847, which he later renamed the “Keller Kurtz Literary Emporium”:

The “celebrated cheap store of Keller Kurtz” had been selling “Bagley’s unequalled gold pens” since the early 1850s:

Kurtz closed his shop in 1855, selling off all the fixtures and squaring away his debts by December 17, 1855:

He also sold his interest in a “boot, shoe, hat and cap” partnership known as Cobean and Paxton at the same time. By January, 1860, Kurtz was a full time representative for C.F. Newton, when on January 10, 1860, he narrowly survived a brutal robbery in his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee:

The thief stole a few items at gunpoint, leaving Kurtz tied up in his room, but the perpetrator missed about $2,000 worth of writing instruments in Kurtz’ trunk. The violent attack made national news, including in Kurtz’ hometown press:

Meanwhile, another character came within Newton’s orbit: James P. Byrne. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Byrne began selling “Byrne’s Army and Navy Writing Case,” a writers kit including pens, pencils, ink and paper. According to this advertisement in the October 29, 1861 edition of the New York Tribune, orders were addressed to J.P. Byrne at 1 Maiden Lane.

What’s interesting about this advertisement is that while the address is the same as Newton’s, and as David Moak noted in Mabie in America the firm of C.F. Newton & Co. was listed as early as 1859 at that address in the New York City Directories, there’s no indication here that Byrne was part of the “& Co.” I believe published accounts of the existence of a firm by that name was Newton referring to himself in the “royal We,” since Newton still appeared to be acting all on his own at 1 Maiden Lane at the end of 1859, as this advertisement from the December 8, 1859 issue of the New York Tribune indicates:

The earliest reference I could find to the formal organization of C.F. Newton & Co. was on January 4, 1861, when a copartnership notice was published in the New York Tribune naming Newton, James P. Byrne and Joseph Moneghan as partners effective January 1, 1861:

On January 1, 1864, Keller Kurtz officially became a partner in C.F. Newton & Co.:

Byrne left at some point during 1864, moving to Chicago to become a partner in Kearney & Co., a publisher, bookseller and stationer in that city. Byrne is described as having been “for many years a member of the firm of C. F. Newton & Co., of New York,” but we know the longest he could have been associated with Charles F. Newton was five years – and judging from his side business at 1 Maiden Lane selling Army and Navy writing sets, it looks like his connections with Newton prior to 1864 could best be described as fluid.

In light of Byrne’s departure, at the end of 1864, Newton, Kurtz and Monaghan dissolved C.F. Newton & Co., simultaneously forming a new partnership effective January 1, 1865 named Newton, Kurtz & Co.:

Charles F. Newton retired from the firm on May 1, 1867, leaving the remaining partners to recast their partnership under the name of Kurtz & Monaghan:

And at this point – finally – we reach the part of the story that sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place: attempting to learn exactly when Edward Todd came into the picture.

The next chapter is posted at https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/from-bagley-through-todd-part-three.html.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

From Bagley through Todd - Part One

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

Note: this is actually the second installment in a series of articles regarding the New York manufacturers which preceded Edward Todd & Co. The first installment was posted at

https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/with-couple-twists.html.

Let me start by saying one of the books I admire the most in my library is Mabie in America, by David Moak. It is well researched, lavishly illustrated, and it’s one of the books I refer back to the most. In fact, when David decided to part with his collection, I bought most of the pencils pictured in the book.

I will also say from the outset that everything Moak wrote about the things I’m about to tell you is absolutely correct, as far as it goes.

Moak’s book details the complete history of Mabie, Todd & Co. The original Todd was Edward Todd, a shrewd businessman whose partnership, Smith & Todd, merged with John Mabie to form Mabie, Smith & Co. on January 19, 1856 (the name was changed to Mabie, Todd & Co. was formed in 1860). On February 27, 1868, Edward Todd left the partnership, and another Todd, his older brother Henry H. Todd, was added so that the firm retained its name. All of this is detailed on page 17 of Mabie in America.

After Edward Todd parted company with John Mabie, his story became something of an aside for the purposes of Moak’s book. Nevertheless, Moak does follow up a little bit on Edward Todd’s later acquisition of Newton, Kurtz & Co. and that firm’s interesting pedigree, starting with the dissolution of A.G. Bagley & Co. on December 31, 1855.

However, since Edward Todd’s story had diverged from the focus of Mabie, Todd & Co., Moak did not fully research these predecessor firms in the same amount of detail, basing his findings solely on an examination of annual New York City Directories. Based on that research, he presented the dates on which various firms were located at 1 Maiden Lane, as follows:

Bagley, Houghton & Co. 1856
H.H. Houghton & Co. 1856
C.F. Newton & Co. 1859
Newton, Kurtz & Co. 1867
Kurtz & Monoghan 1868
Edward Todd & Co. 1871

All of these names and dates are accurate – but they only reflect who was present when data was being collected by directory editors each year, and it further assumes that those editors accurately updated their records (and were given accurate information by the occupants). A significantly more detailed and precise timeline emerges from an examination of newspaper accounts at the time.

It all begins with Albert G Bagley, an early pioneer about whom I’ve written here a few times. Albert G. Bagley, by his own account, went into business in 1839, but I could find no evidence that he was in New York prior to 1842, with what looked like a rocky start to his business:

On August 22, 1842, the New York Post reported that Bagley had filed a bankruptcy petition. On August 27, the Brooklyn Evening Star reported that his hearing in the United States District Court of New York would be held on September 29.

Bankruptcy must have suited Bagley. With his creditors discharged and off his back, Bagley became a prolific advertiser in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, beginning on October 25, 1842:

By 1846, he was advertising heavily in newspapers such as the Buffalo Commercial, and even took out a large advertisement in the New York City Directory.

Bagley had a few missteps in his personal life – most notably, taking in a 16-year-old girl who then became pregnant, causing his wife to leave him and the girl’s parents to sue him. Bagley’s exploits are detailed in the “Manhattan Pen Makers Project” pages maintained by Richard Binder, but Binder didn’t write it (he attributes it to Ron Dutcher and unfortunately, none of the original source material is properly cited for verification). An identical account was posted by “System of Adam” over on Fountain Pen Network in 2008, but it too appears to have been copied from someone else, probably Dutcher’s site. It is an interesting story, which can be read at http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/tools/manhattan/bagleyag.htm.

During this time, Bagley also sued a former employee by the name of William Clarke on November 30, 1848, alleging that Clarke had failed to abide the terms of what appeared to be thinly veiled indentured servitude. The appellate case, Bagley v. Clarke, 7 Bosw. 94 (1860) provides some insights into Bagley’s associations during the 1840s:

(The link to the case, so you and I can both find it, is https://books.google.com/books?id=q-cDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=%22Albert+G.+Bagley%22+smith&source=bl&ots=MgO5ZSK0tK&sig=xO3SWbrpFRMGBlWcmM7F7jAgCKU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDrsSR_LvZAhUP2VMKHSKoCEMQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false.)

This case indicates that Albert G. Bagley, who had previously appeared to have gone it alone, began to associate with Gerrit Smith and Edgar M. Smith in May, 1846 (the case says 1856, but that has to be a typographical error, since that would have been years after the events in the case were alleged to have occurred, in 1846). On December 1, 1846, a formal copartnership was forged between Bagley and the two Smiths to become A.G. Bagley & Co. By its terms, the duration of the partnership was until January 1851, but due to Bagley’s “difficulties” with his partners, it was dissolved prematurely on August 10, 1848.

Beginning in May, 1849, a frequent notice appeared in the New York Evening Post, in which Bagley warned all persons infringing his patents of his intent to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Unless there was a grand conspiracy to pilfer Bagley’s intellectual property by the public en masse, the message appears to have been directed at the Smiths and Mr. Clarke:

Note that these advertisements contain no indication that Bagley was associated with any firm, suggesting that between August 10, 1848 and May, 1849, Bagley was again going it alone. Beginning in October, 1849, however, Bagley’s frequent advertisements in the Buffalo Daily Republic again refer to “A.G. Bagley & Co.” and included another name, H. H. Houghton, selling “Bagley’s Gold Pens”:

I could find nothing to indicate when Bagley became associated with Henry Harrison Houghton, but his dealings with Houghton appear to have been peaceful and prosperous by comparison. I didn’t find a formal notice of the partnership’s establishment, but there apparently was one and it lived out its full term through December 31, 1855, at which time a dissolution notice was published, followed by an announcement that Charles F. Newton had been admitted as a new partner. The new name of the firm would be Bagley, Houghton & Co.:

Bagley retired on April 19, 1856, and notice that the firm was dissolved and continued by Houghton and Newton under the name H.H. Houghton & Co. appeared in the May 6, 1856 edition of the New York Times:

Note that at the end of this notice, Bagley indicates that he has been in the business for 17 years – that’s the only source I have that he began work in 1839. According to the Ron Dutcher history, Bagley left for St. Louis, where he continued to make pens at least through 1870 according to census records (this tip came from a nib John Loring had in his collection marked Bagley St. Louis).

As Albert G. Bagley exited stage left, the business he established continued in the hands of numerous other characters, culminating with the day Edward Todd stepped into 1 Maiden Lane and assumed the helm. In part two of the story tomorrow, I’ll walk you through the blizzard of partnerships formed and dissolved between 1856 and 1870.

The next installment picks up at https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/from-bagley-through-todd-part-two.html.

Monday, March 5, 2018

With a Couple Twists

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As Joe Nemecek and I pawed through Ed Fingerman’s stash of Victorian pencils, these two sort of jumped into my hands and refused to leave:

These are both examples of Edward Todd’s typical combination dip pen/pencil, patented by Joseph Monaghan and Thomas Flynn on December 19, 1871, with Flynn assigning his interest to Monaghan:

I’ve written about this mechanism a couple of times before here recently, with a black hard rubber example in “Lownds Redux” (https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/10/lownds-redux.html) and most recently with an example rendered in 14k in “Packing a Punch” (https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2017/09/packing-punch.html). But each of these has something which adds a bit more to my collection.

The all-metal example isn’t 14k, but the imprint is a little different from what I’m used to seeing, sort of wrapped around the barrel rather than in straight lines:

And the nib, in addition to being a nice big number 5, sports Joseph Monaghan’s name:

As I had mentioned in “Lownds Redux,” David Moak’s excellent book, Mabie in America, indicates that Edward Todd purchased Kurtz & Monaghan in 1871, renaming it Edward Todd & Co., the same year that the patent for the combo was issued – suggesting that this example might have been one of the earliest ones made under the Edward Todd name.

But this one is not as early as the other example. I was eager to add it to my collection anyway, since red hard rubber examples of anything Victorian are so much harder to come by. The nib is an Edward Todd number 3, which might suggest later production (or a later replacement nib):

But on closer examination, the imprint was something I had mentioned in “Lownds Redux” . . . something that I had never seen, but would like to:

Patent applied for.

Back in 1871, patents did not include the dates on which inventors applied for their patents, so I found it irresistible to start poking around in an effort to learn with greater certainty when Edward Todd purchased Newton, Kurtz & Co. In the process, I found some surprising things concerning the genealogy of the New York firms which preceded him. What developed was a clearer history than I’ve been able to find from any other source . . . one I will share with you starting tomorrow . . .

Note: direct link to tomorrow's article is https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2018/03/from-bagley-through-todd-part-one.html.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

A Pushmaster Tutorial

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On page 54 of The Catalogue of American Mechanical Pencils, I mention the Esterbrook Pushmaster as an “Esterbrook variant to watch for.” Recently I was able to pick up a red one from Eric Magnuson :

It joins the green example shown in the book

The model was introduced around 1941 – possibly earlier, as I found a black example commemmorating the New York Worlds’ Fair of 1939-1940 that I wrote about back in 2012. Google wiped out the pictures, but I was able to find them on my hard drive:

What I should have done, either in the book or here at the blog, was show the Pushmaster next to its more common cousins for comparison:

The Pushmaster shares the longer nose from the earlier Dollar pencil series, and the trim band and clip of the later models . . . and the plastic from neither. My favorite feature of the Pushmaster, though, is the top: these don’t have the name on the clip itself, but there’s a great Esterbrook logo in the place of a black plastic “jewel”:

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Never Dull In More Ways Than One

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The early Eclipse pencils have been a bit of an obsession of mine – especially since I was finally able to connect the dots and determine that the earliest “Never Dull” pencils were in fact made by the Rex Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island . . . another obsession of mine.

Part of what connected the dots for me was the “Never Dull” imprints appearing on other brands more clearly associated with Rex .... brands like the “Albert Howard” and such. The link was easy, since Never Dull always seems to appear on these:

But not so much on those that are marked Rex, which is why it was so hard to connect the dots:

I don’t remember if the imprint on this one is what excited me, or whether it was the fact that it was an Eclipse in sterling, something you don’t see too often:

What I do know is that if I had seen an Eclipse with an imprint like this, it might not have been so hard to connect the dots to Rex:

An Eclipse, with the same plain Jane imprint you’d find on a Rex.

Friday, March 2, 2018

Like Cats and Dogs

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This one surprised me after I looked at it closely enough to see what was going on:

The painted wood barrel and smoky gold trim were very familiar to me. Here it is, shown between two Eagle Ritaways:

I wrote about the Ritaway here back in 2012 - it was one of the articles here that had its pictures wiped out by the good folks at Google. In that article I’d noted that while the Ritaway looks to be an evolutionary step in the development of the Eagle Magnum Pointer, the similiarities are in name only. The patent reveals that what’s going on inside is very, very different:

John H. Fischler applied for the patent for the Ritaway on April 19, 1921, and patent number 1,410,666 was granted on March 28, 1922. The top example in that trio of pencils has Fischler’s patent stamped on the cap:

The lower one sugggest that the straight cap examples were earlier, since it has a “Patent Applied For” stamp, dating it to 1921:

The example were are looking at today, though, has something far more interesting stamped on its cap:

“Blaisdell U.S.A. / Patent Applied For.” Without question, this is a pencil made by Eagle for the Blaisdell Paper Pencil Company, a Philadelphia company better known for making paper-wrapped china marker pencils. Blaisdell also made – or had made for it – a s ubstantial variety of wood-cased pencils, too. The company’s offerings in the way of mechanical pencils, though, are very sparse.

And there’s always something about their stuff that suggests Eagle. The brand shows up on page 26 of The Catalogue:

Leadholders like the ones at the top in this picture are marked with the Blaisdell name on the top, and they are usually found sporting an accommodoation clip patented by the Eagle Pencil Company in 1915.

But what I never understood was how Blaisdell and Eagle could have collaborated so much on mechanical pencils when the relationship betweent the two companies wasn’t always so cozy, as this patent infringement case from 1898, brought by Blaisdell against Eagle, suggests:

There’s an explanation. As I was writing American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, I ran across and listed several Blaisdell trademarks. One was from 1897, applied for by Thomas B. Homer on behalf of the “Blaisdell Paper Pencil Co.” Then, beginning in the 1920s, there were a proliferation of filings on behalf of “Blaisdell Pencil Co.,” many of which were filed by Alfred C. Berolzheimer, President, or Edwin M. Berolzheimer, Vice President including the one for the Blaisdell name in that distinctive script, filed for registration on December 20, 1919:

The Berolzheimer name stood out like a neon sign to me as I was writing the book, because it was the Berolzheimer family which founded and owned the Eagle Pencil Company (its name was later changed to Berol). Maybe, I wondered, Eagle later acquired its once fierce competitor – and when I followed up on that lead:

In 1938, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint alleging price fixing by the pencilmaking industry, naming as defendants “Eagle Pencil Company, New York, and its subsidiary, Blaisdell Pencil Co., Philadelphia.”

I have not found an accurate date when Eagle purchased Blaisdell. My suspicion is that it would have been sometime close to December 20, 1919, when Alfred C. Berolzheimer, identified as the company’s president, filed an application for registration of the Blaisdell trademark (which had been in use, according to the application, since January 1, 1893). It would stand to reason that a new buyer of a company whose value was primarily one of good will and business reputation would promptly take steps to assure that good will was exclusively secured.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

"Everrounded," Perhaps

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When I saw the first of these two – I don’t know which one it was – my first thought was that they might be Conklin pencils, with those rounded caps.

However, the finish isn’t quite what you’d expect of Conklin, and those green bands around the top tell a different story. Different companies filed trademarks for different colored bands, and a green band denotes the American Lead Pencil Company. In American Writing Instrument Trademarks 1870-1953, I list three different trademarks registered by American with respect to the green band. The earliest, number 66,976, was applied for by Byron Goldsmith on May 31, 1907, claiming that the mark had been used by the company since September 20, 1906.

The registration certificate isn’t much to look at – it was issued during a time when registration certificates referred to attached drawings which, of course, haven’t been preserved. I did, however, fish the illustration out of the issue of the Official Gazette in which the drawing was published for objection, and I included it in the book:

The imprints are also a trademark of the American Lead Pencil Company – Venus:

There’s eight different trademarks for “Venus” in American Writing Instrument Trademarks; the earliest, number 40,090, was applied for on March 9, 1903, in which the date of first use claimed was January 10, 1903:

What is really interesting about these two pencils is their shape, with those round, distinctive caps. I hadn’t seen them before – normally metal Venus pencils are along these lines:

These were the Venus “Everpointed” pencils:

No, there’s no trademark I’ve found for “Everpointed,” and I wouldn’t expect to. As I mentioned recently when discussing an 1840s tube of “Everpoint Leads” from Henry Cohen & Co., the word “Everpoint” was coined by S. Mordan & Co. at the dawn of the mechanical pencil industry but quickly became a generic term. By the time these pencils were made, the word had been in such common use in connection with mechanical pencils that the mark would have lacked any specific proprietary meaning.

Incidentally, the full-sized, boxed example came with some great paperwork I’ve had photographed for awhile, so since I’m on the subject . . .