Sunday, July 9, 2017

The Three That Were in the Mail -- and Another One

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.

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It wasn’t really fair to end my “World’s Largest Eversharp Collection” article the way that I did, showing you everything but the three that were in the mail and heading my way.  I suppose I could have waited for the package to arrive . . . but since I’m nearly always waiting for a package to arrive, it’s the best I could do.

(The direct link to that previous article, in case you missed it, is http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2017/07/worlds-largest-eversharp-collection.html.)

With Michael McNeil’s care package from Portland in hand, now I can show you the three Eversharps that didn’t make it into that last article, starting with one that at first blush doesn’t look all that special:


Maybe it doesn’t look all that special, but it sure is handsome . . . and with all its closest relatives all lined up and together, when the opportunity arose to bring home the largest in the set I couldn’t resist:


There was another reason this one interested me.  I do have another example:


Don’t pay too much attention to the different cap treatment – since they are interchangeable, I could swap one over if I wanted to.  I won’t, though, since this is how I found it and with an ad on the barrel of the utility model, I suspect the cap is probably correct for an advertiser.  What interested me was that Wahl had two versions of its mottled hard rubber - the rosewood-looking type and the “wild and crazy” type.

The other two are very similar to each other, with one intriguing difference.  Here they are, the two gold filled examples, alongside the sterling one I’ve had for a while.


These goofy-looking things have triangular lower barrels and round upper barrels.  They are from the Parker days of Eversharp, between 1957 and 1961, as you can see from the “Big E” on the clips:


They were made in England, all stamped at the top.  Although I (used to) try to limit myself to collecting American pencils, I’ve always made exceptions when it comes to Eversharps:


Although the two gold filled ones were in different patterns and that would be enough to convince me I needed both, the real reason for the splurge is best evident from the other end:


Those with the silver prongs protruding from the tip are cap-actuated repeaters.  The other example is a twist mechanism.

Having my Eversharps organized is sort of a mixed blessing.  It’s really nice having everything together and knowing where everything is, but it’s only when everything is all lined up in a row that you can see where the gaps still are – and as extensive as this collection is, there are still gaps.  While I waited patiently by the mailbox for these three to fill in a couple places in one printers’ drawer, I fiddled around online and ran across something else:


It wasn’t until all the Skylines were organized that I noticed how few Skyline Solid I examples I had . . . so that burgundy one at the bottom arrived in yesterday’s mail!

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