The following was my answer to a post by Vance Koven on another "network".
But thought it might be of interest here too.

1) The Wahl Company traces back to its history and the manufacturer of the
Wahl Calculator, which they manufactured primarily as an add-on calculator
for the Remington Typewriter Co ( and a few others before they became
dedicated to the Remington production) which made invoicing and ledger
card posting on the typewriter possible, took their by then
considerable financial strength and bout out the rights to the under
financed and struggling Eversharp mechanical pencil from Charles
Keeran of Chicago in 1915 for $50,000 and some Wahl Company stock.

2) Thus having gotten into the writing instrument business they put
their muscle behind it and sold a few million units in the first 2
years of production. After the relative perfection of the self
filling fountain pen, they purchased a large amount (almost all) of
the assets of the then financially strapped Boston Safety Pen Company
in 1918 for $50,000.

3) The Pencils were always called Eversharp. When they bought the pen
designs, machinery and materials and went into the Pen business, they
labeled all of the pens Wahl.

4) The first pens with no variation from the Boston's, (including the
same stock numbers) were sold as Wahl "Tempoint" Pens. In the early
days of the Wahl Pen, as Vance has stated, the leverage they got out
of the Eversharp reputation was used to lend credibility to the
quality and reliability of the Wahl Fountain pens. Eventually the
reputation of the fountain pens was adequate to stand on its own, and
by that time the elision of the names came about. And eventually the
Wahl Company (which was always the corporate name up to the mid 30's)
was merged into a new corporation : Eversharp, Inc.

5) Now, back to the original question...The common opinion amongst
those who have studied the company in some detail is that the
appearance of the Wahl name on the Skyline pens almost 7 years after
it was "dropped" from common use, was a legal necessity to produce
something with the name on it to demonstrate that the name had not
been abandoned. The length of production of the Wahl Skylines is
believed to be no more than a few months in duration. They are few in
number and condition for condition command about a 50% premium over
the standard upper end Skylines , or about $150 -$175.

When, in order to preserve the Wahl and Eversharp name for all of us
to use freely (back when the Paul Wirt name was commandeered by one
Pen entity and the use of the name by anyone else was threatened by
warnings about infringement," in about 2004, I filed with the USPTO
for the rights to the Trade Name Eversharp, Wahl, and Wahl-Eversharp,
as I thought perhaps the names were abandoned too. Not so. The
Parker Pen Company has continued to maintain its rights to the names
up to this day. There is a smallish law firm in Chicago that
continues to re-file/re-register the names in adequate time to keep
their rights to it alive. They even licensed the name to the French
company that made the reproduction Skylines a few years back.

Enough already, right?

Like I said Vance got almost all of this right, so a Gold Star on his
report card!

Syd the Wahlnut

The Wahl Skylines are indeed an interesting piece of the company's production history. I finally snagged one back in September, and I'm a happy camper.

Syd, I have always assumed (a dangerous thing to be sure) that the Eversharp that Schick bought and put that name on injector razors and blades was the same company. Is this a correct belief?
One of the razors I use on occasion is marked Eversharp Schick.

Yes indeed,
Eversharp, Inc. bought Magazine Repeating Razor Company in 1946. This was the company originally founder by Colonel Schick in the 19teens, and when Eversharp bought it in 1946, they changed to name to Schick and then tried a number of name adjustments to get the Eversharp name into the brand name. There's a lot more history about what happened at Eversharp in the late '40s relating to their corporate successes and failures. While they busted out on the Ball Point due to Costs of original patents ($1.6MM, and the follow through on repairing faulty CA pens, and other boondoggles, the the Eversharp Schick division carried forward for decades more.

Syd

Syd;

Going from memory I'd say it was 1917. Anyway, an excerp from the text Patricia Lofti sent me of her article (then in progress) with Fultz (Pennant 2003 forget which one) bears this out;

"Wahl's president, C. S. Roberts, finally decided to try to renegotiate the acquisition of Boston Safety. After Christmas, 1916, he and Keeran traveled to Boston and tendered $25,000 to Charles Brandt to buy the pen company. Brandt rejected their offer. Roberts had additional funds wired to him and tendered the agreed $50,000 to exercise Keeran's option. Brandt again rejected the money and declined to sell. Roberts hired Boston counsel and eventually prevailed on Brandt to consummate the sale in January 1917."

Roger W.

Roger,
Of course you are correct. It was 1917 not 1918...no excuse, fat fingers.

The info you cite is corroborated by another source. According to Bob Bolin's research (he's a Pencil historian, and incidentally a Keeran buff and prof at U of Nebraska), Keeran had negotiated an option to purchase the Boston Safety Pen Company for $50,000 on a 60 day option dated September 19, 1916. The option was extended on November 18th 1916 for another 60 days expiring on January 17, 1917. CS Roberts the then president of Wahl and Keeran left Chicago on the Century train on December 26th 1916 to exercise the option, but Roberts thought that Brandt would take $25k and run. (Rob Astyk has some data that indicates that the Brandts were in a financial bind due to some restrained credit by a Bank (I have to look that part up. As is his nature he suspects collusion between the Bank and other forces trying to squeeze the Brandts. But I cant verify that...Rob likes drama)

Any way thanks for the correction. I'm on a diet and soon my fingers will not be so fat!

Syd

T