Presidential (not shown, 14k); Signet (1955) or Insignia (1957) in gold fill, Flighter in stainless 51 Custom (gold filled cap), 51 Deluxe (lustraloy cap) 51 Special (black jewel) 21 (convex clip) and 21 Special (concave clip) 41 (top) and 45 (bottom) 61 61 (side view, showing "rainbow" caps) According to the 1957 catalog, the shorter pencil is the LL-275 and the longer is LL-295. The LL-275 was paired with Jotters for the "Pardners" sets.  The LL-295 was called the Liquid Lead Special in 1955. LL-275 ..read more

I'm pleased to report that Volume 7 of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog is now available in print, notwithstanding paper shortages, labor shortages, and sanity shortages.  Out of 100 copies printed, 60 were spoken for on the day they arrived, so with The Ohio Pen Show coming up November 11-13, speak now if you want a copy from the first printing: This first printing was manufactured by the same folks who printed A Century of Autopoint and The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 6 - they have dropped the "Bookmasters" name since Volume 6 was printed, and now they go by Baker and Taylor Publisher Serv ..read more

 For more than twenty years, collecting pencils has been a part of my life.  For the last ten, writing books about them has been a much bigger part. The last year and a half knocked a big chunk out of that part of my life, since the things I write would mean nothing if I just scribbled away in a corner somewhere without contact with the outside world.  Periods of solitude are requisite for research and writing, but it is collaboration and interaction with readers that makes these articles more accurate and more entertaining . . . not to mention more fun, both for me to write and ..read more

 "The King of Pencils . . ." Charles Keeran used that slogan to advertise his new Ever Sharp back in 1914.  It was just one example of Keeran's P.T. Barnum-style hyperbole -- however, his new pencils did trigger an industry-wide seismic jolt and singlehandedly standardized the size of ordinary writing lead to 1.1 millimeters in diameter. Maybe Keeran was right. His turn of phrase got me to thinking:  out of more than 15,000 mechanical pencils in my collection, what would cause me to call just one pencil "the king" over all others?   I finally acquired something that ..read more

In “To Out-Heath Heath” on July 19 https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2021/07/to-out-heath-heath.html, I wrote about Charles Keeran’s decision to change suppliers for his Ever Sharp pencils in October 1915, from the George W. Heath Co. to the Wahl Adding Machine Company.  Keeran claimed the move was to increase production - he had no qualms about the quality of Heath’s work, but Heath wasn’t able to keep up with the demand for Ever Sharp pencils.   The transition appeared to be a clean break, with no overlapping production.  Heath did not license Wahl to use Heath’s paten ..read more

 The Order of the Leadheads started as a private club for those who supported the publication of this blog in printed form.  I numbered the original run of Volume 1 -- just 50 copies -- and those who bought them became the original 50 Loyal Knights of the Order.   The Order has proliferated in the years since, but  Knighthood has always been bestowed on the basis of buying books.  I suppose that means demonstrating the requisite exemplary service to justify admission to the Order has been . . . well, simple bribery.  I paused to reconsider my admission standa ..read more

I had a bit of fun posting this picture online, with the caption "When the Ripleys are the 'common' ones in this picture, it's a good day": From left, these are a Parker "Golden Arrow," predating the adoption of the Vacumatic model name, two "Ripley" Vacumatics, one from the early run and the other from the "Class of '39" Parker parts blowout (see Volume 5, page 281); a Parker Vacumatic in "Cobra" or "Egg Shell"; and a pair of Parker prototypes with highly unusual mechanisms (see Volume 3, page 8).   The Cobra was the reason I took the picture.  Ten years ago, during the relea ..read more

It was good to see old friends at the Raleigh Show after more than a year without any pen shows in the States.  Loyal Knight R. George Adams was in attendance, and after we caught up a bit he swung by my table with some pencils that caught my interest.  Here are two of them: The plastic is called "icicle" by collectors -- I haven't seen any documentation that this was an official designation, and I'm content in the belief that it is a collector's nickname, and a good one.  Here is an icicle, compared to a "normal" Esterbrook plastic: These are the first icicle pencils I've r ..read more

Sometimes I get bored trolling online auctions searching for "pencils."  There are usually some 20,000 auctions at any given time, and 90 percent are modern pencils that . . . ok I'll admit it.  They bore me. On days when I'm weary of looking at "vintage" Pentels that are younger than I am (in fact, younger than most of my socks), I'll switch things up and search for one of my favorite brands.  Searching "Gordon" might bring up one of my treasured "fanged clip" pencils, but most of what that will yield are NASCAR pencils.  I may be from Ohio, but there's no shrine to Jeff ..read more

With auction pictures being what they are, and online sellers sometimes garbling their descriptions, I bid on this lot for a closer look: The seller described them as "Slimcil" pencils.  I assumed the seller meant "Slencil," but still . . . these looked different from the early Slencil pencils I've seen.  It has been years since I've posted about Carl Harris' early Slencil pencils, because I haven't had anything new to add to the discussion since Volume 1.  Here's the image from Volume 1, page 163: In 2015, I revealed that at some point, the Moore Pen Company was producing t ..read more