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Spots And Dots -- Origins Of Sheaffer's White Dot


jonveley

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Hey all,

 

This pencil isn't a Sheaffer:

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MfkAkRouPYE/VK0zvxOEeEI/AAAAAAAADds/cwzGv4r1TGU/s1600/Dunhill1a1.jpg

 

However, in the course of researching it I've found strong circumstantial evidence that Sheaffer's adoption of the white dot in 1924 was actually a repurposing of Dunhill's "white spot guarantee." Details of the "White Spot Pipe Case" and Sheaffer's connections in New York -- 2 blocks from Dunhill's American retail location -- are posted over at Leadhead's today.

 

Direct link to the article: http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/01/spots-and-dots.html

 

I think there's other parts to this story, so if you can fill in any blanks, please drop me a line--

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Jon;

 

Hmmm, I think it has some merit. I can think of no lore that we have otherwise which explains Sheaffer's choice of the white dot.

 

Roger W.

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As I was discussing this with Daniel Kirchheimer, he mentioned that Sheaffer may also have derived the white spot from the English pen brand Mentmore, which began using it at almost the same time if not slightly earlier.

 

Obviously, it will be difficult to verify the truth of what really happened. If this truly was just a coincidence, there would be no documentation -- if it wasn't, there would be great incentives to keep it quiet.

 

I find the Kraker connection interesting, and there's one other detail I found that is intriguing but hasn't yet developed into anything. In 1921, at exactly the same time Sheaffer was reorganizing its operations, Dunhill hired a new American representative: the former owner of the Diamond Point Pen Company.

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If the court decision opened the way for Sheaffer, it also would have opened the way for others -- so Mentmore stepping in at that time would have made perfect sense.

 

There's clearly something going on here, but pinning it all down exactly is going to be very difficult if not impossible, barring discovery of some insider's private correspondence or memoirs. To complicate things further, back in the early '90s I found a small ring box (plush, squarish, hinged) from Sheaffer's jewelry store, and there was a sort of bullseye logo in the lining of the top that looked just like a white dot in a circle. I did not photograph it before I sold it to Fultz, alas, and I have no idea where it might be now. I believe the jewelry business was wound down well before the White Dot was adopted, so this adds another layer of complexity to the picture.

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Sheaffer's jewelry store remained in business under that name at least through 1921, but I'm not sure how long after that it existed.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Although everything could true ... and the opposite too, the fact is that Sheaffer'S don´t need to copy to others companies.

Sheaffer'S had the image and the sentence that gives meaning to the image, "Bull´s eye of perfection", from their establishment in 1913. From their foundation. Certainly Sheaffer´S, in this matter, dont need to copy others companies.

 

During the first 4 years, nothing less! from WD appearance on top cap, ie from 1925 to 1928, there are differents ads campaigns, with many different drawings, based on images with WD as bull's-eye of arrow-fpens... the same image and sense that 1913.

 

The issue is so absent from causes that we could also raise.

 

Sheaffer´S near Dunhill also means Dunhill near Sheaffer´S. Isn't it? ;)

 

Sheaffer´S has alibi for use the center of bull eye as image and previous registred phrase-sentence as live motive of this image... Does Dunhill have? :)

 

Summarize: I think they came to similar sites from very different paths.

 

http://s28.postimg.org/w4qg1za65/white_dot_bull_s_eye_lazard.jpg

Edited by Lazard 20
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Although everything could true ... and the opposite too, the fact is that Sheaffer'S don´t need to copy to others companies.

 

Sheaffer'S had the image and the sentence that gives meaning to the image, "Bull´s eye of perfection", from their establishment in 1913. From their foundation.

 

Not so. Sheaffer used a multiple-ring bull's eye with the center circle in black (when depicted in color) very briefly at the beginning of the company, then they completely dropped it. The next arrow/target imagery doesn't appear until a single ad in 1927. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that Sheaffer used the "Bull's Eye of Perfection" "from" their establishment in 1913, because they did not continue to use it. That's like saying I've been a resident of Queens, New York from 1962 -- even though I haven't lived there in fifty years.

 

Certainly Sheaffer´S, in this matter, dont need to copy others companies.

 

They did not need to, but they may have chosen to. Penmakers copied other companies regularly, and Sheaffer was no exception. They copied other makers' model names, and even their pen designs. If they saw Dunhill's White Spot, realized what an effective mark it was, and knew they had no legal constraints to using a similar mark, there was no reason Sheaffer wouldn't have adopted it.

 

During the first 4 years, nothing less! from WD appearance on top cap, ie from 1925 to 1928, there are differents ads campaigns, with many different drawings, based on images with WD as bull's-eye of arrow-fpens... the same image and sense that 1913.

 

Incorrect. There were no ad campaigns at all that were based on images with the White Dot as a bull's eye. So far, you have produced exactly one ad showing arrows pointing at the White Dot, and it's from three years after the White Dot was introduced, when Sheaffer was using all sorts of graphics in their ads. That's not "during the first four years." It's during one month, years after the insignia was first used. The claim of "many different drawings" being used by Sheaffer over the period 1925 through 1928 using "the same image" as that used very briefly at the company's founding is false. One image (or two, generously) is not "many."

 

What percentage of Sheaffer's ads over the decade following the introduction of the White Dot show arrows aimed at the White Dot? 1%? What percentage of the ads run from the creation of the White Dot over the following two years show bull's eye imagery? 0%? If Sheaffer had wanted consumers to see the White Dot as a bull's eye, they should have fired the entire marketing department fifty times over.

 

Sheaffer´S near Dunhill also means Dunhill near Sheaffer´S. Isn't it? ;)

 

Yes! They had offices very close together in New York in the early 1920s, when Dunhill had been using a White Spot for about a decade. Jon Veley hypothesizes that Sheaffer personnel saw that Dunhill logo, used for Dunhill's guarantee, and thought it would make an outstanding logo for Sheaffer's guarantee.

 

Sheaffer´S has alibi for use the center of bull eye as image and previous registred phrase-sentence as live motive of this image... Does Dunhill have? :)

 

Might want to look up "alibi." Sheaffer needed no legal justification for using the symbol, because they didn't use it on pipes. Dunhill had been using the insignia for over a decade when Sheaffer trademarked their White Dot.

 

Summarize: I think they came to similar sites from very different paths.

 

Sheaffer used a multi-ringed target very briefly around 1913, then did not use any arrow or bull's eye imagery for about 14 years. Sheaffer didn't even use an outer ring when using their Dot on the barrels of pens. It's almost as though Sheaffer did everything possible not to have the symbol seen as a target; they didn't have it classified as a target when they registered the trademark, they didn't include an outer ring when using the Dot on pen barrels, they didn't make the Dot the color of a real target's bull's eye, they registered the trademark using a white dot on a green (not black) background, and when they launched their new symbol to the public, they ran dozens of ads, year after year, and never once mentioned a bull's eye, target, or arrow. "Green inlaid with a white dot, the mark of pen aristocracy," "the aristocrat of pens can be identified by the little white dot," and "'spot it by the dot in its field of jade," they proclaimed, when the White Dot first appeared on pens in ads. A "little white dot?" A "dot in a field of jade"? Not even in a "circle of jade"! What consumer would say, "oh, a dot in a field of jade! That sounds just like a bull's eye!" And when Sheaffer shows the Dot as a design element, does it appear at the enter of a target? No. It's used as an emblem in a crest, where a target image would look out of place. The Dot then appears as blooms of a sort on a writhing vine -- seven, of them, no less! Targets, growing on trees? A horticultural shooting gallery, perhaps?

 

If Sheaffer was trying to evoke a bull's eye, they could not have done a worse job, really.

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/wp-content/fpngallery/ads-radite/24-12-27-sep.jpg

(December 27, 1924, from Roger Wooten's www.SheafferFlattops.com)

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/wp-content/fpngallery/ads-radite/25-04-18-sep.jpg

(April 18, 1925, ibid)

 

http://www.sheafferflattops.com/wp-content/fpngallery/ads-radite/26-01-30-sep.jpg

(January 20, 1926, ibid)

 

 

http://s28.postimg.org/w4qg1za65/white_dot_bull_s_eye_lazard.jpg

 

Mr. Nishimura's description of a jewelry box is a textual description, not a graphical one. The graphic you show here was created by you, and therefore represents only your own imagination. You have created the proportions out of your own mind. You also place this graphic in a putative chronological sequence, but you have no idea when it is from. For these reasons, it is of no probative value. You then show a black hard rubber pen's cap top with a White Dot, as though that is the first use by Sheaffer of a White Dot, and you date it 1924. This is incorrect; you should instead show the top of a jade pen, as you do not dispute that the Dot first appeared on Jade pens, not black pens, and if you also use a black-pen graphic, you should correct the date of 1924, because you do not dispute that there is no evidence the dot appeared on black pens in 1924. The next image represents the fallacy of begging the question. The second-to-last graphic shows the only known ad showing arrows after the creation of the White Dot. The last graphic is both irrelevant and incorrectly captioned, as there is not a scintilla of evidence that the modern Sheaffer logo represents a bull's eye -- what target has the second ring split into two colors with a wavy divider?

 

Sheaffer used all sorts of fanciful imagery and associated language in their White Dot-era ads. the Arc de Triomphe ("a new Triumph"), trees ("a world-record demand takes root"), ocean waves ("on the high wave of public approval"), skyscrapers ("this towering achievement"), a Greek temple ("now a pencil 'classic'"), a feather ("it is light in weight"), a clock ("this fountain pen of the hour"), a tapestry ("it is the banner pen of a banner year"), a bouquet ("the flower of pen-dom'"), snowflakes ("crystal-clear has been the success of this great pen"), a winged hourglass ("time cannot harm these fine writing instruments"), a harp ("in tune with the most exciting conceptions of beauty"), a branch of dogwood ("the finest flowering of the reservoir pen idea"), a heraldic lion ("this great pen is having a lion's share of success"), and The Notre Dame cathedral ("enduring beauty has been built into these towering successes") -- all before that one 1927 ad that shows arrows. And what is the tag line in that arrow ad? What clever text ensures that the reader, three years after the Dot is launched, knows that the arrows aim at a bull's eye? Why, this: "Are you carrying a little white dot on your fountain pen?" No mention of a bull's eye, or a target, or even of an arrow. No bull's eye of perfection. Just another month, another graphic, and this one without so much as a clever tag line. And the next ad with a graphic uses the Sphinx, and the line, "long-life is a matter of substantial building".

 

What less could Sheaffer have done to have their little white dot on a field of green be interpreted as a target?

 

--Daniel

Edited by kirchh

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Sheaffer used a multiple-ring bull's eye... (Daniel)

 

Thank you for recognizing this. When you view the WD in the beginning you see two rings, which draw a smaller white circle inside a larger and darker one ... exactly as a bull's-eye, excerpted as all logo,and certainly, as Mr. Nishimura description too. Exactly as current time. Lazard

 

So, this idea design as my little gift for the upcoming Sheaffer´S ads campaign:

 

 

SHEAFFER´S 1913 - 1924 - TODAY... ALWAYS.

 

http://s17.postimg.org/pf8fb2wcf/white_dot_vs_bull_s_eye_lazard.jpg

 

They did not need... Daniel

 

...TO COPY? OK, SO WE ARE ALL AGREE ON THIS MATTER. THANKS NEWLY (Lazard)

 

If they saw Dunhill's White Spot, realized what an effective mark it was, and knew they had no legal constraints to using a similar mark, there was no reason Sheaffer wouldn't have adopted it. Daniel

 

"IF" THEY SAW DUNHILL WHITE SPOT... THEY SURELY REMEMBER SHEAFFER´S 1913 BULL´S EYE, THEY SURELY REMEMBER LEITMOTIV BULL EYE´S OF PERFECTION AND, PROBABLY, THEIR SHEAFFER´S CASES JEWELRY :)

 

ADDITIONALY YOU HAVE FORGOT THAT SHEAFFER'S, PRECISELY, INITIALLY PLACED WD ON TOP OF CAP... DRAWING SO A BULL´S EYE AS 1913. WHAT FORTUITY, MAN!

 

IN ANY CASE:

ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU SAY IS TRUE? REALLY COULD I USE THE LOGO OF COCA COLA IN SHOES -DIFFERENT EPIGRAPH-, OR GOOGLE IN CANDIES, OR BANK OF AMERICA FOR A AMERICAN´S BENCH MARK OR TOKYO STOCK EXCHANGE IN ANY TOKIO STOREHOUSE BY TO BE DIFFERENT NIZA´S EPIGRAPH ?

 

HOW THEY KNEW THAT WOULD NOT HAVE LEGAL CONSTRAINTS BEFORE OR AFTER IF WD WAS A COPY? Lazard

 

 

Incorrect. There were no ad campaigns at all that were based on images with the White Dot as a bull's eye. So far, you have produced exactly one ad showing arrows pointing at the White Dot. Daniel

 

INCORRECT YOU. NO ONE BUT MANY. THANK YOU FOR GIVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW SOME OF THE DIFFERENTS DRAWING ADS WITH SHEAFFER´S FOUNTAIN PENS AS ARROWS AND WD AS BULL'S EYE. Lazard

 

http://s4.postimg.org/xxmp9dfel/sheaffer_pens_arrow_bulls_eye_Lazard.jpg

 

What percentage of Sheaffer's ads over the decade following the introduction of the White Dot show arrows aimed at the White Dot? 1%? Daniel

 

DANIEL, YOU NEED LEARN UP MATH & STATISTIC (Lazard)

 

 

Yes! They had offices very close together in New York in the early 1920s, when... (Daniel)

 

when... SHEAFFER´S have USED LEITMOTIV "BULL´S EYE OF PERFECTION" o with your own words, "Sheaffer used a multiple-ring bull's eye" OR MAYBE USE THIS LOGO INTO SHEAFFER´S JEWELRY CASE (Lazard)

 

Might want to look up "alibi." (Daniel)

 

I DONT "LOOKING FOR" ALIBI, THEY HAD ALIBI AS EVERYONE CAN SEE.

 

Sheaffer used a multi-ringed target very briefly around 1913, then did not use any arrow or bull's eye imagery for about 14 years (Daniel)

 

A MULTI-RINGED BULL´S EYE, BY THE WAY... AND WHIT A WHITE DOT OR WHITE CENTER AS BULL´S EYE.

 

WRONG TOO. EVRYONE CAN SEE ARROW IN THE SHEAFFER´S BARREL CROSSING "S" OF SHEAFFER´S AND EVERYONE CAN READ MR. NISHIMURA DESCRIPCION REGARDLESS OF THE PROPORTIONS (Lazard)

 

If Sheaffer was trying to evoke a bull's eye, they could not have done a worse job, really. (Daniel)

 

 

WRONG TOO, HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? THEY DO A GREAT WORK, SEE: (Lazard)

 

http://s28.postimg.org/stzig3rrh/white_dot_bull_s_eye_lazard.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by Lazard 20
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Walter Sheaffer, his son, his son in law, including Mr. Brewster, they saw the same what many others

-with some exceptions- see today.

 


A WHITE CIRCLE INSIDE A GREATER AND MORE DARK CIRCLE ... AS THEIR 1913 BULL'EYE.

 

http://s28.postimg.org/bkyr992vh/white_dot_bull_s_eye_1930_lazard.jpg

 

Now, all together, so Daniel, Roger, Freddy, Shaporama, Jonszanto, Kernando, BeRa and abw9259

can see more clearly while they waiting to see the S ´S jewelry case.

http://s8.postimg.org/rdtlv42lh/white_dot_bull_s_eye_2_lazard.jpg

http://s7.postimg.org/dtqmkatzv/sheaffer_pens_arrow_bulls_eye_Lazard.jpg

Edited by Lazard 20
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Dates are relevant. Dots, arrows, and what not in ads AFTER the 'White Dot' is announced are not relevant when discussing the origin of the trademark.

 

As an aside, these discussions generally get to a point that the thread is so cluttered that actual facts are difficult to extract. Presentation of incomplete or even inaccurate data further complicates matters for the casual reader. Also, the distinction between opinion presented as fact and data seems to be missing in some posts.

 

I fear all but the most interested readers have long left the discussion and no longer care about such matters.

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

My PM box is usually full. Just email me: my last name at the google mail address.

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I fear all but the most interested readers have long left the discussion and no longer care about such matters.

 

I'm not so much interested as entertained, but perhaps these posts should get moved to their own "debate" forum so those who do care can access them and those who don't do not have to scroll past them everyday.

 

Brian

One test is worth a thousand expert opinions.

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Dates are relevant.

 

You have Sheaffer´dates, pre and post here and a Sheaffer´S letterhead with the founder and son in life where you see no only a circle but two as eye´s bull and as Mr. Nishimura description.

 

http://s21.postimg.org/5z1zuwf4n/white_dot_bull_s_eye_2_lazard.jpg

 

Dots, arrows, and what not in ads AFTER the 'White Dot' is announced are not relevant when discussing the origin of the trademark.

 

 

 

Not necessarily. A symbol can be born perfectly and not be explained its provenance before.. nor after like Dunhill, or be explained as Sheaffer'S do.

In this case, as I say, Sheaffer'S has graphic and verbal alibi from Sheaffer´S was established and Dunhill have nothing.

 

 

I'm not so much interested as entertained, but perhaps these posts should get moved to their own "debate" forum so those who do care can access them and those who don't do not have to scroll past them everyday.

 

 

What will irresistible for you, knowing what talking here, you can not stop looking at it?

 

I'll tell you. You do not like the result Sheaffer'S winning 28-0 and continually look here to see if Dunhill makes a try. It´s equals, will be 28-3...and clock countdown.

 

I fear all but the most interested readers have long left the discussion and no longer care about such matters.

 

INot everyone can understand all things, is normal. Understanding requires patience and some intellectual effort and not everyone is willing and, on the other hand, some people when they begin to understand what they don´t want understand, want to move the debate o give up.

 

But very well, because new ones have started to come, important is there seems not to be your case because your participation in this topic are very active, But yes, indeed, it seems that some people, failing their own arguments, have begun to flee.

 

When presenting Sheaffer´S jewelry case they want to be away.

 

No one should attempt to damage Sheaffer´S name, or attempt to blacken the White Dot so, with nothing, with a mere circumstance of proximity and without knowing Sheaffer´S history nor Sheaffer´S images.

Edited by Lazard 20
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Lazard;

 

Look, nobody agrees with you (you list a great many of us - Daniel, Roger, Freddy, Shaporama, Jonszanto, Kernando, BeRa and abw9259). Can you please provide a list of anyone that agrees with you? If this theory is ever published in a book it will be one of your own creation, much like your "evidence". There is no point in debating you as you present opinion as fact (great point Todd). Your last additions are just showing white dots and not targets. The concept of the white dot clearly eludes you. Perhaps you lack focus or cannot see the forest for the trees. If Sheaffer pens had targets on them I would want to shoot them. Clearly Sheaffer did not want their pens to be shot at so they would never put targets on them.

 

Roger W.

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For those who are still trying to follow the facts, let me emphasize once more that I have no images of that ring box, nor do I know who now owns it. Fultz might well have sold it on, or it might be in storage somewhere in the Sachs-Fultz Collection. As best I recall, the image in the top of the box was in outline form, most certainly not in multiple colors. Nor was there any indication of the box's date. As Daniel has noted, the Sheaffer jewelry store remained in business beyond the date of the introduction of the White Dot on Sheaffer pens. So the image in the box could well be a later reflection of the White Dot, rather than vice versa. The other possibility would be that the image was indeed intended as a target, coinciding with Sheaffer's very early (and by all evidence, very short-lived) use of the "Bullseye of Perfection" image and the original pre-1913 imprint. In any event, what the box does not provide is independent evidence of a dot, spot, or bullseye logo being used by Sheaffer at any time between 1912/13 and 1924.

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Vintagepens,

 

Thank you for your honest and independent viewpoint.

 

Your testimony confirms to me the same used in the letterhead circa 1930, in 1913 catalog and many ads during 1925 to 1928, and as fountain pens top cap, a white dot inside into a larger and dark circle, which is the same as the Sheaffer´S bull's-eye of 1913. For me that Sheaffer'S tell us what the WD are from 1925 to 1928 is sufficient because a logo, appeared in late 1924, can´t be explained before it appears, Elementary, my dear Watson :)

1913 catalog, jewelry and fpens cases, letterheads, employees service aniversary pins, ads from 1925 to 1928 and arrows and top cap pointing in the same direction and this direction is not exactly a pipe. Then, everyone has their opinion.

 

As I said, grateful for your info.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Roger,

 

It is normal to have other opinions. In this case additionally people who you list is a super small number, friendship together, so that everyone will have an answer for this small number but I don´t care and is alien to the origin of WD so I will not discuss this. I also get the support of all my family, friends and my fpens relations about this topic. They have no doubt. If you teach the images and their sequence to someone without prejudices like people as you having been with WD for years and have seen nothing they could see anything ... or could understand what others understand.

 

This post and this other https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/236305-represent-the-white-dot-something/ has had 100 or more readers with 1,500 readings. We know the public, not the private, opinion of 10 people or less and before seeing all the data so there are 90 that we don´t know they think. There are people who see, read, who do not like to be noticed, much less controversy, but have their own opinion.

 

The data, dates, history are here and it is really beautiful is that everyone can form their opinion. if Jonveley the'd known all he could to have been so blunt, or not, in his statement and I say only, perhaps.

 

 

 


http://home.comcast.net/~kirchh/Misc/Logo_description_detail.jpg

 

And here is the specimen that Sheaffer submitted with their trademark registration:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~kirchh/Misc/Specimen_detail.jpg

 


This picture with a white circle inside a greater and darker one remember me Sheaffer´S 1913 catalog, Sheaffer´S arrows in barrel and ads, Sheaffer´S jewelry and fpens box, Sheaffer´S letterhead Sheaffer´S employee service aniversary pins and so on. WD Isolated, as others spot, there aren´t sense and Sheaffer´S with their arrows and double circle with their philosophy, background, and history gives meaning to WD, is my point of wiew

 

We can coexist perfectly with opposing views. Deeply respect yours, please respect mine.

Permit me to say goodbye of moment, and joy with this image -drawn by The Walters, colored and reinterpreted by me- with those who deducted, as I do, the Sheaffer'S originality of White Dot.

 

Where did cartoonist took the idea, of Dunhill perhaps?

 

We see!

 

http://s1.postimg.org/fw7tay733/white_dot_arrows_bull_s_eye_Hairbrush_color_La.jpg

Edited by Lazard 20
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Sheaffer used a multiple-ring bull's eye with the center circle in black (when depicted in color) very briefly at the beginning of the company (Daniel)

 

Thank you for recognizing this.

 

I stated this over two years ago. Please read my posts with more care. It will save a lot of time. Also, be more careful about truncating quotations; it could give the impression that you are trying to distort someone else's statements and positions. Thanks.

 

When you view the WD in the beginning you see two rings, which draw a smaller white circle inside a larger and darker one ... exactly as a bull's-eye

 

Incorrect. The center of a bull's eye is gold. And when the White Dot was applied to the barrel of a pen, there isn't even an outer circle -- just a white dot, alone, as specifically described in the trademark.

 

The first use of a White Dot by Sheaffer is against a mottled green background. What bull's eye has a mottled green background, or even any non-solid color, for its second ring?

 

So, this idea design as my little gift for the upcoming Sheaffer´S ads campaign:

 

 

SHEAFFER´S 1913 - 1924 - TODAY... ALWAYS.

 

http://s17.postimg.org/pf8fb2wcf/white_dot_vs_bull_s_eye_lazard.jpg

 

 

I remind you that you did not dispute that there was no White Dot set into the top of a black pen in 1924, so you repeat this error that was in your previous post.

 

Here's the Bull's Eye of Perfection when seen in color:

http://home.comcast.net/~kirchh/Misc/Black_Bullseye_Detail.jpg

 

And, of course, the modern Sheaffer logo created around the end of 2000 doesn't represent a bull's eye at all; the White Dot is raised, and it is embraced by a sort of black and red Yin-Yang design (you forgot to show it in color). "The fusion of form and function," I believe Sheaffer explained.

 

They did not need.to, but they may have chosen to... Daniel

 

...TO COPY? OK, SO WE ARE ALL AGREE ON THIS MATTER. THANKS NEWLY

 

Yes, definitely. We are all in agreement that Sheaffer didn't need to copy another company's marketing device, but they may have chosen to. Just as Sheaffer didn't need to copy Parker's Vacuum Filler product name when they "created" their own Vacuum-Fil product name -- but they chose to. Or when Sheaffer didn't need to copy the design of the Snapfil pen, with it's tapered barrel end, but Sheaffer chose to do so. (Oh, again you cut off my quotation before it was finished; please take more care when quoting others, as noted above.)

 

"IF" THEY SAW DUNHILL WHITE SPOT... THEY SURELY REMEMBER SHEAFFER´S 1913 BULL´S EYE, THEY SURELY REMEMBER LEITMOTIV BULL EYE´S OF PERFECTION AND, PROBABLY, THEIR SHEAFFER´S CASES JEWELRY :)

 

 

Incorrect. You cannot conclude that the person or person's responsible for the White Dot logo "surely" remembered Sheaffer's brief use of a bull's eye (with black center and red second ring in color ads) ten years earlier. This is purely your own speculation.

 

Yet again, you also draw conclusions about both the appearance and the age of the one jewelry box mentioned by David Nishimura. That, too, is purely your own speculation.

 

ADDITIONALY YOU HAVE FORGOT THAT SHEAFFER'S, PRECISELY, INITIALLY PLACED WD ON TOP OF CAP... DRAWING SO A BULL´S EYE AS 1913. WHAT FORTUITY, MAN!

 

Not really. Ten years earlier, Sheaffer had very briefly used a bull's eye (with black center in color ads) in a few marketing materials. But the White Dot was just a dot -- no outer ring when applied to the barrel of a pen. And Sheaffer did not register the trademark in the "target" category.

 

ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU SAY IS TRUE? REALLY COULD I USE THE LOGO OF COCA COLA IN SHOES -DIFFERENT EPIGRAPH-, OR GOOGLE IN CANDIES, OR BANK OF AMERICA FOR A AMERICAN´S BENCH MARK OR TOKYO STOCK EXCHANGE IN ANY TOKIO STOREHOUSE BY TO BE DIFFERENT NIZA´S EPIGRAPH ?

 

HOW THEY KNEW THAT WOULD NOT HAVE LEGAL CONSTRAINTS BEFORE OR AFTER IF WD WAS A COPY? Lazard

 

"Google" etc. are not design marks. You'll want to brush up on your trademark knowledge.

 

Did you read about the Dunhill White Spot case?

 

Incorrect. There were no ad campaigns at all that were based on images with the White Dot as a bull's eye. So far, you have produced exactly one ad showing arrows pointing at the White Dot. Daniel

 

INCORRECT YOU. NO ONE BUT MANY. THANK YOU FOR GIVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW SOME OF THE DIFFERENTS DRAWING ADS WITH SHEAFFER´S FOUNTAIN PENS AS ARROWS AND WD AS BULL'S EYE. Lazard

 

Only one of the dozen or so ads that you show includes arrows (you repeat one of the images), it's from 1927, and there is not even any supporting text mentioning bull's eyes, targets, arrows, or anything related. Pointing at a graphic does not make the graphic a bull's eye. "The dot in its field of jade." A dot -- not a bull's eye, nor even a circle or disc. No mention of a target or allusion to an outer ring -- the green around the "little white dot" is just a "field." No bull's eye at all.

 

- the Arc de Triomphe ("a new Triumph")

- trees ("a world-record demand takes root")

- ocean waves ("on the high wave of public approval")

- skyscrapers ("this towering achievement")

- a Greek temple ("now a pencil 'classic'")

- a feather ("it is light in weight")

- a clock ("this fountain pen of the hour")

- a tapestry ("it is the banner pen of a banner year")

- a bouquet ("the flower of pen-dom'")

- snowflakes ("crystal-clear has been the success of this great pen")

- a winged hourglass ("time cannot harm these fine writing instruments")

- a harp ("in tune with the most exciting conceptions of beauty")

- a branch of dogwood ("the finest flowering of the reservoir pen idea")

- a heraldic lion ("this great pen is having a lion's share of success")

- the Notre Dame cathedral ("enduring beauty has been built into these towering successes")

 

...and yet, not a single mention of an arrow, a target, a bull's eye, for years. And when for a month or so, one ad shows arrows, the text still does not mention arrows, or targets, or bull's eyes. The best-kept secret in pen-dom!

 

What percentage of Sheaffer's ads over the decade following the introduction of the White Dot show arrows aimed at the White Dot? 1%? Daniel

 

DANIEL, YOU NEED LEARN UP MATH & STATISTIC (Lazard)

 

OK, thanks.

 

So what's the answer to the question?

 

Here's another, while you have your math book out: What percentage of Sheaffer's ads following the creation of the white dot use the word "bull's eye" over the next, say, fifty years?

 

Yes! They had offices very close together in New York in the early 1920s, when Dunhill had been using a White Spot for about a decade.... (Daniel)

 

when... SHEAFFER´S have USED LEITMOTIV "BULL´S EYE OF PERFECTION" o with your own words, "Sheaffer used a multiple-ring bull's eye with the center circle in black (when depicted in color) very briefly at the beginning of the company, then they completely dropped it." OR MAYBE USE THIS LOGO INTO SHEAFFER´S JEWELRY CASE (Lazard)

 

We seem to agree completely here (I completed the quotations of mine that you again truncated -- bad habit!), with the exception of your reference to the jewelry box, which you have not seen, nor for which do you have a date.

 

Sheaffer did give employee award pins in jewelry boxes, but I'm not sure when that practice started.

 

 

Might want to look up "alibi." (Daniel)

 

I DONT "LOOKING FOR" ALIBI, THEY HAD ALIBI AS EVERYONE CAN SEE.

 

Hmm, I see you didn't look it up.

 

 

Sheaffer used a multi-ringed target very briefly around 1913, then did not use any arrow or bull's eye imagery for about 14 years (Daniel)

 

A MULTI-RINGED BULL´S EYE, BY THE WAY... AND WHIT A WHITE DOT OR WHITE CENTER AS BULL´S EYE.

 

Incorrect on both counts.

 

The bull's eye is the center of a target; when one hits the bull's eye, one hits the center of the target, not just anywhere on the target.

 

The center of the target shown in color ads is black. I think you might have overlooked that once or twenty times going back over two years.

 

 

WRONG TOO. EVRYONE CAN SEE ARROW IN THE SHEAFFER´S BARREL CROSSING "S" OF SHEAFFER´S AND EVERYONE CAN READ MR. NISHIMURA DESCRIPCION REGARDLESS OF THE PROPORTIONS (Lazard)

 

Incorrect.

 

I said, "Sheaffer used a multi-ringed target very briefly around 1913, then did not use any arrow or bull's eye imagery for about 14 years."

 

If you are now claiming that the arrow logo used on Sheaffer barrels is later than 1913, please present your evidence. Failure to present this evidence is reasonably taken as a retraction of this claim.

 

If you are claiming you have determined a date for the jewelry box and that it falls between 1913 and 1927, please present your evidence. Failure to present this evidence is reasonably taken as a retraction of this claim.

 

If you cannot support your claims that the arrow logo and the jewelry box are later than 1913 and earlier than the 1927 "arrow" ad, my statement stands unchallenged.

 

If Sheaffer was trying to evoke a bull's eye, they could not have done a worse job, really. (Daniel)

 

 

WRONG TOO, HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? THEY DO A GREAT WORK, SEE: (Lazard)

 

It's very easy to say, because in all the years you have been arguing this point, few if any other people agree with you, even after viewing all your evidence. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

Oh, don't forget to correct all the mistakes in that graphic you again show -- the dates, the missing jade, the dating of the jewelry box, the lack of color in the modern Sheaffer logo...

 

--Daniel

Edited by kirchh

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Walter Sheaffer, his son, his son in law, including Mr. Brewster, they saw the same what many others

-with some exceptions- see today.

 

Well, now you're simply making things up. You have no idea what Walter Sheaffer, W. A. Sheaffer II, or anyone else from the time saw. Please don't fabricate information like this; it only distracts from the discussion.

 

 

A WHITE CIRCLE INSIDE A GREATER AND MORE DARK CIRCLE ... AS THEIR 1913 BULL'EYE.

 

http://home.comcast.net/~kirchh/Misc/Black_Bullseye_Detail.jpg

 

 

http://s8.postimg.org/rdtlv42lh/white_dot_bull_s_eye_2_lazard.jpg

 

As noted, there are several errors in this graphic. When you post a corrected image, we can discuss it. As it stands, it is without value in this discussion due to the inaccuracies.

 

In this case, as I say, Sheaffer'S has graphic and verbal alibi from Sheaffer´S was established and Dunhill have nothing.

 

What do you mean, "Dunhill ha nothing?"

 

Not everyone can understand all things, is normal. Understanding requires patience and some intellectual effort and not everyone is willing and, on the other hand, some people when they begin to understand what they don´t want understand, want to move the debate o give up.

 

Spoken from personal experience, I think.

 

No one should attempt to damage Sheaffer´S name, or attempt to blacken the White Dot so, with nothing, with a mere circumstance of proximity and without knowing Sheaffer´S history nor Sheaffer´S images.

 

"Blacken the White Dot"? Never!

 

Just the Bull's eye:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~kirchh/Misc/Black_Bullseye_Detail.jpg

 

 

...what the box does not provide is independent evidence of a dot, spot, or bullseye logo being used by Sheaffer at any time between 1912/13 and 1924.

 

Lazard, please keep this in mind while you are correcting your graphics and statements about this jewelry box.

 

This post and this other http://www.fountainp...-dot-something/ has had 100 or more readers with 1,500 readings. We know the public, not the private, opinion of 10 people or less and before seeing all the data so there are 90 that we know they think. There are people who see, who do not like to be noticed, much less controversy, but have their own opinion.

 

Actually, many of us know the opinions of many of the other readers of these posts.

 

The data, dates, history are here and it is really beautiful is that everyone can form their opinion.

 

Broadly true, but you have been impeding that process by posting erroneous information. I'm encouraged, though, that readers have been able to recognize the accurate information and have formed well-supported opinions.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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Wow. For what it's worth,

 

1. The bullseye theory isn't holding up. It never works to try to bend facts around a theory - better to adjust or ditch your theory around known or discovered facts.

 

2. By 1924 legal standards, if Sheaffer repurposed Dunhill's white spot for use on pens, that action was perfectly legal. No "alibi" would have been required, because Sheaffer could have said "we liked the idea of a white spot guarantee so much we decided to do it, too." If it's true, the only reason Sheaffer would want to keep it quiet would be for public relations reasons, not for legal concerns.

 

3. My story concerns why Sheaffer adopted a white spot and associated it with a guarantee in 1924. I think if they wanted to harken back to their early days -- prior to Dunhill's adoption of the spot in 1915 -- they would have done so in a heartbeat with gusto. I agree completely with Daniel. If they were going for a bullseye, they couldn't have missed the mark by more than they did.

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it is so tempting when one is new to the history of art to find similarities in visual motifs, and to rejoice in having found a connection. Alas, there are many more parallels than direct connections -- as will be found out the hard way, should one have the temerity to turn the finding into a paper or seminar report.

 

Once one has a pet theory, it is very difficult to resist the unconscious tendency to dismiss evidence that contradicts it, and to bend the interpretation of ambiguous evidence to support it. My graduate advisor wisely taught his students to seize on the evidence that didn't fit, rather than to dismiss it, and to try always to be willing to question one's most fundamental assumptions.

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When your pet theory is challenged by Daniel, et al, your beliefs get even stronger. It's you against the world (sigh).

 

Once one has a pet theory, it is very difficult to resist the unconscious tendency to dismiss evidence that contradicts it, and to bend the interpretation of ambiguous evidence to support it. My graduate advisor wisely taught his students to seize on the evidence that didn't fit, rather than to dismiss it, and to try always to be willing to question one's most fundamental assumptions.

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