Pencil Sketch--Welsh Dresser

Galena, Illinois

Crow Pencil Box

A week after my father's funeral, I was invited to attend the estate sale of a couple I had known at my university many years previously.  It was a house full of nooks and crammed with books;  it had deep layers of daily living accumulated over decades.  It was a collage of a marriage, and portraiture of two individuals.  I roamed through the house fascinated.  Inexplicably, it was just what I needed to do at that moment.

I purchased a pencil box.  It was created by Ian Nicholas in decoupage.  

Inside, it looked like this:

Now, after a few weeks, it looks like this:

The Waterman metal cap repeater pencil from the 1950s seemed to belong there.

It is a cap-actuated repeater of dark grey plastic and two-tone metal, with silver tip and clip.  

It uses a 0.9mm lead and has a red rubber eraser under the cap.

Among the last of the USA-made Watermans.

Pencil and Watercolor Sketch--Liffey Bank

Liffey River Bank

Chapelizod

Dublin

Pencil Sketch--Gulf

Off Veteran's Road

Alabama Gulf

Pencil Sketch--Bellvue

Bellvue Station
Bellvue, Iowa

The Ideal Waterman for the Lodge Brothers

This green marble Waterman pencil with gold-tone trim is a nose drive model from the 1930s.  The 4 & 3/4 inch pencil has 1.1 mm lead size, and a washer style ball clip with the Ideal logo on the clip as well as the Waterman name.  On the cap is imprinted "Waterman's" and "United States of America," and under the cap is an eraser.  

The model of this pencil is unknown, but it is linked by its logo to that Waterman stock in trade, the Ideal fountain pen.  From 1884, when the first Waterman pen was produced, for the next fifty years, the Ideal fountain pen grew the Waterman company into a large and well-known commercial venture with offices in New York, Boston, and Chicago, and outlets in San Francisco, London, Montreal, and Paris.  Below is the Waterman building in mid-Manhattan, Numbers 173-177 Broadway, New York.

In the 1920s the Waterman company began making pens with emblems on the caps for organizations and fraternities such as the Rotary, the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Columbus, and all branches of the Free Masons including the Blue Lodge, the Scottish Rite, the Knights Templar, and the Mystic Shrine, now known popularly as the Shriners.  They also made imprints with lodge names and numbers for individual lodges:  the green marble pencil is one of these.

This is the imprint of the Free and Accepted Masons' lodge called the Solon Lodge, Number 771.  It was a Manhattan lodge of mostly German-American Masons with names like Meisner and Zobel dating back to the 19th century.  The lodge belonged to the greater German Masonic Temple Association, and is documented in "A Standard History of Freemasonry in the State of New York." Sadly, the lodge's identity was lost when it merged with Brooklyn's Lessing Lodge # 608 in 1978, and again with the German Union Lodge #54 in 1981.  But their pencil outlasted them into the 21st century.  After all, it is a Waterman!

Tucked Away from '42 to '54

I have noticed with wry interest that things from about 1945 to 1965, or in that style, are now called "mid-century," a look that has come into vogue with those born in the '80s and '90s.  They are making it their own, making it fresh --- it's clever and bright.  Check out this blog site for "mid-century" renovators, for example:  http://retrorenovation.com/  There's a discussion of how to make a doorbell from a rotary dial phone, where to get "atomic" shower knobs, and other useful stuff.

As a mid-century person, I have a little bit of nostalgia for the period, so I have been drawn to mid-century pencils like the Sheaffer lady's pencil called the "Tuckaway."  Even the term is right out of the era--remember the Hide-A-Bed and percolator?  Or how about this very dubious building material, "Fibrolite?"

Recently I added a third Tuckaway to my other two, and it is the earliest yet, the clip-less model with the wide center band, circa 1942.  It has the shape of the Sheaffer Balance, but in a diminutive size (4") and with a cute little snub nose.  Tuckaways use the newer .09 mm lead, sometimes called thin lead.  They are middle-twist operated.

All the Tuckaways I have picked up are personalized with the name of the owner, leading one to suspect that this was either something women really liked, or that it was offered free with the purchase of the pencil--maybe both!

When Sheaffer added a clip to the Tuckaway, it also was diminutive and snub-nosed.  

The grey striated ones are made of celluloid, while the burgundy is made of the new post-war plastic.  It has Sheaffer's "lifetime warranty" white dot.

They all have handy grip for your fingers, but the later plastic pencil (bottom) had a new smaller point.   With its two-tone trim, it was the "Sentinel" model, while the striped version with the narrow band is the "Lady."  There is also a "Triumph Crest" model with a gold cap.  I'll be keeping my eye open for one.  Maybe look for a mid-century desk doo-dad, too!

A Couple of Couples

Over time, they say, married couples begin to look like each other, but these couples looked similar from the start.  They are both a set of lady and gentleman's pencils from Waterman, from the mid-1930s and early 1940s.

Above are pencils in the 1930s "Thorobred" line in green & bronze agate.  The gent's pencil has silver trim, while the lady's has gold.  The lady's pencil has a brown celluloid tip, while the gent's has a black one.  Both the pencils above are imprinted on the removable cap, which contains an eraser:  "Waterman's /Reg. US Pat. Off. /Made in U.S.A."  They use 1.1 mm lead and are characterized by a totally flat top.  They are 5 and 4 & 1/2 inches respectively.

Sad to say, the lady's pencil has lost its clip, which fitted into the top like the Lady Patricia's clip (shown top-most, above). The Lady Thorobred pencil has a narrower band than the Lady Patricia, and a stubbier tip, but longer point.

In the 1940s, Waterman's continued to cater for both men and women with their mid-range "Commando."  Here is a man's in black and a woman's in striated gold, both with gold-tone trim. While they look like repeaters, they are actually nose drive pencils, measuring 4 & 1/2 and 5 inches.

The clips fasten onto the flat tops, and have an aeronautical feel to the design. Only the clip carries the Waterman name.  Although it was available, Waterman's had not yet moved to the thinner 0.9 mm lead for these pencils.

Two Waterman couples, enough for a table of bridge.  Who's keeping score?  

Later, I was able to find this Thorobred lady's pencil with clip intact; here it is:

See my blog about Waterman's products during the second world war:  WWII and Waterman's

A Greenback Dollar

From the hard times of the early 1930s comes this Wahl Eversharp "Dollar" pencil, advertised as a "popular priced" writing instrument in a line which included mechanical pencils for as much as $5.63 in 1930, and as little as 60 cents.  The full-sized 5 & 1/2 inch "Dollar" pencil shown has a black tip, black removable top cap with eraser underneath, and gold-tone point, bands, and ball clip, while the body of the pencil is finely grained jade green "marble."

It is a middle-drive twist pencil with 1.1 mm lead.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the drought and dust-storms that plagued the mid-section of America made even a dollar too much--much too much!--to pay for a pencil.  

The farmers benefiting from Hoover's 1929 Farm Relief Bill probably used wooden pencils to record and add up their seed and feed bills--they cost a few pennies.

From the dust bowl came bankrupt farmers and businessmen, out-of-work farm laborers, and migrant farm workers, all seeking a living in greener pastures of plenty.  Among these was one man who chronicled the times with songs of the people, whose guitar was, famously, a machine that killed fascists.  He was to be a significant influence on American music.  For important documents he used a fountain pen.

I don't want your millions, mister.

I don't want your diamond ring.

All I want is the right to live, mister.

Give me back my job again.

Words by Woody Guthrie to the tune of "Greenback Dollar"

I don't want your greenback dollar,

I don't want your silver chain,

All I want is your love, darling,

Won't you take me back again?

Traditional lyrics

A New Name for the Waterman 94 & 95

Who was in charge of naming these?  The Waterman 94 Pen and the 95 Pencil.  I know it was The Great Depression, but had imagination gone bust, too?  They're a classy pen and pencil, and deserve better.  The 94 pen sold for $5 and the 95 pencil for $3.  That was pretty substantial for the time.  The trimming was either gold-filled or chromium-plated.  They were marble or agate celluloid in several colors.

Recently, I was able to add a grey marble 95 with chromium trim to my collection of Waterman pencils.  It is an almost green grey, and so is the darker, solid color point.  The marble has red veining--subtle, but attractive.  

The top has a molded bullseye instead of a jewel, and screws off to access the eraser.  There is no printing on the clip, and just a nice, subtle design on the center band.   The imprint is on the back of the cap, and says, "WATERMAN'S, Reg. US Pat. Off., Made in USA."  The 95 pencil uses the standard 1.1 mm lead.

Perhaps you saw the brown agate 95 with gold-filled trim I showed earlier.  See the blog page Made for Each Other.  Another very attractive pencil from the 1935-1939 era.

But back to the name---so boring, not at all distinctive! How about naming the 94/95s after the High Line? It was that famous New York City rail line which opened in 1934, and is supposed to be making a comeback this year. See more at the High Line website.

The more I think about it, the more I like it!  The Waterman "High Line!"