Fountain Pen & Pencil Combo's

[Johnny Appleseed]

This is a spin-off from a comment about the Scnell Pencil-pen in the thread on pen Tiers.

 

The comment was a reference to some info on Richard Binder's extremely informative website, where he writes:

Schnell’s Penselpen, conceived by industry veteran Julius Schnell and introduced in 1929, is generally conceded to be

the original fountain pen/pencil combination (combo).

- link.

 

Schnell can be credited for setting off a new wave of popularity for the fountain-pen and pencil combination, but his was not the first. Dip pens, of course, had been made as combination pencil-penholders since the mid 1800s. However, I know that Eagle produced an ED fountain-pen combination as early as 1913. The following is a scan from the Sears Spring 1913 catalog with the Eagle combination pencil-pen (2nd from the top).

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/laridae/Sears-Spring1913.jpg

 

I am not certain if this is the first mention of the Eagle pencil-pen combination, as I do not have catalog info prior to 1913. I do note that this pen does not appear in 1914 or later, so it must not have taken off.

 

Later, but also prior to Scnells 1929 pen is a "Good Service" combination from either the 1927 or 1928 catalog (I will update with scan later) with a notable "D" on the lever-end. Someone was making combos before Scnell set off the wave.

 

I have not been able to find a patent that would work for the Eagle pen shown above, but surely there must have been one. In doing a Google Patent search, I was only able to come up with two patents- US1150068 Herman Schroeder's 1915 patent for what appears to be a retractable-safety fountain pen, and the much earlier Houschild Patent number 161228 from 1875 for a combination pen-pencil. Anyone know of any other patents? Or a candidate for the patent Eagle might have used?

 

John

Edited August 13, 2008 by Johnny Appleseed

[Vintagepens]

Good questions here.

 

The Eagle combo would appear to be the first fountain pen combo mass-produced, judging from what it to be found out in the field. I cannot think of anything comparable, either earlier or contemporary.

 

The earliest fountain pen and pencil combinations I have seen are a Bion-type pen with a porte-crayon at the back end (late 18th or very early 19th century) and a similarly-configured Sheffer-patent pen (2nd 1/4 19th century, possibly slightly later). Both are unusual variants of instruments made in limited numbers and very rare today.

[EventHorizon]

What about Arnold? I have never been to clear as to when they started but I have more than a few.

[Vintagepens]

Later, but also prior to Scnells 1929 pen is a "Good Service" combination from either the 1927 or 1928 catalog (I will update with scan later) with a notable "D" on the lever-end. Someone was making combos before Scnell set off the wave.

This is a worthy project for further investigation. The conventional wisdom that Schnell's Penselpen set off the craze for combos at the end of the 1920s would seem to go back to the articles on Schnell in the Pen Fancier's Magazine, and in particular to a publicity interview with Schnell back when the Penselpen was first being marketed. Any claims about priority in combo manufacture in such a context would have to be taken with a big grain of salt, of course, but to my knowledge no one has actively tried to look more closely at what really happened with the combo craze. Did Schnell indeed set it off, or was he just one of many who tried to ride it?

I have not been able to find a patent that would work for the Eagle pen shown above, but surely there must have been one.

A design patent, possibly; a utility patent, no. Too much prior art to be overlooked by the patent examiners, I think.

[Johnny Appleseed]

A design patent, possibly; a utility patent, no. Too much prior art to be overlooked by the patent examiners, I think.

 

True, the combination of a pen and pencil is not new, nor really are any of the components.

 

Here is the long overdue catalog page - Sears, Fall 1927, showing a Good Service pen-and-pencil combination with a "D" on the lever. This is notably different from the other CE Barrett/National made Good Service pens. Wonder who made it? I don't think it looks like a Schnell product.

 

Either way, they had a combo about 2 years before the 1929 date given for the PencilPen.

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/laridae/Fall1927-1.jpg

 

John

[rhosygell]

I have only recently sold a Packard pen pencil combo on e-bay.

 

Very nice looking 30's ( I think) brownish celluloid instrument with a large fine steel nib. Actually, the fountain pen wrote surprisingly well despite limited ink capacity.

[RevAaron]

Where pen/pencils very popular? At the couple antique shops around here, it seems at least half of the pens they have are what look to be low end combo pens. It made me wonder if combos were more of the pen/pencil of a thrifty workingman, e.g. the masses of people, or if it just happened to be what was left at the crappy antique stores in the area.

 

Aaron

[Vintagepens]

Where pen/pencils very popular? At the couple antique shops around here, it seems at least half of the pens they have are what look to be low end combo pens. It made me wonder if combos were more of the pen/pencil of a thrifty workingman, e.g. the masses of people, or if it just happened to be what was left at the crappy antique stores in the area.

 

A very good question. From the overall number surviving, I think there can be no doubt of their popularity -- at least in the USA in the 1930s (combos seem not to have captured the fancy of consumers in other countries with which I am familiar). And it is also incontrovertible that combos are disproportionately uncommon in the contemporary output of the top-tier American penmakers. Some only dipped their toes in the water, so to speak: Parker and Waterman combos were not advertised or catalogued (excepting the earlier Waterman desk pens with pencil-ended tapers). Others did go into full production -- Sheaffer, Conklin, Mabie Todd -- but even there it appears the models were not terribly popular, judging from the numbers of survivors.

 

I think the (economic) class division is the best hypothesis so far regarding cheapie vs top-line combos. That still doesn't tell us, however, where the line should be drawn. Were the cheapies bought primarily by the working class or somewhere further up the scale -- especially during the Depression? It would be very interesting and useful to have more hard data on the demographics of the pen market in this era (and other eras past).

[Vintagepens]

A bit of a followup -- we really should try to nail down the dates of the Eagle combo through some other sources. I wouldn't assume that it didn't sell well just from its absence from one retailer's catalog, especially since I've had a few of them with the distinctive Eagle metal clip, bearing the patent date of 1915.

 

An example is (at least temporarily) visible here.

[Buzz J]

A bit of a followup -- we really should try to nail down the dates of the Eagle combo through some other sources. I wouldn't assume that it didn't sell well just from its absence from one retailer's catalog, especially since I've had a few of them with the distinctive Eagle metal clip, bearing the patent date of 1915.

 

An example is (at least temporarily) visible here.

 

 

Super combo David, really excellent condition. I wonder about the emblem on the nib - it looks like the interstate highway sign. Is there a known story behind it?

 

John

[Vintagepens]

Super combo David, really excellent condition. I wonder about the emblem on the nib - it looks like the interstate highway sign. Is there a known story behind it?

 

That's the standard Eagle nib imprint of the era. I don't know anything about the backstory, if any.

[EventHorizon]

Where pen/pencils very popular?

 

My opinion has been that they were popular as a novelty with some functionality (i.e. keep one writing instrument in your purse instead of two). I say "purse" because it seems that every pen/pencil I see is relatively small.

 

[Johnny Appleseed]

Where pen/pencils very popular?

 

My opinion has been that they were popular as a novelty with some functionality (i.e. keep one writing instrument in your purse instead of two). I say "purse" because it seems that every pen/pencil I see is relatively small.

 

There were a great number of large combo's with pocket clips as well. I have seen quite a few that were longer than 5 1/2".

 

John

[Dennis B]

John et al,

 

Interesting topic and not one discussed previously AFAIK. I don't have much to add except in one of my areas of interest, pens made by George Kraker dba the Michael George Co., I just acquired a Pencraft combo made 1928-32 when the company was in Libertyville, IL. A good size pen/pencil with a 14K #6 nib. Writes well but the ink capacity is pretty small. Here are pics.

 

Dennis B

 

http://www.parkvillepen.com/images/kraker/pencraft/combo.jpg

 

 

http://www.parkvillepen.com/images/kraker/pencraft/comboopen.jpg

 

 

http://www.parkvillepen.com/images/kraker/pencraft/combonib.jpg

[Johnny Appleseed]

Dennis - that is a great pen. I love the stepped clips on some of the Pencraft pens.

 

On the main topic - I guess we also have to consider early combo's in other countries - this looks like some sort of early British Combo - GILDER LEVER FOUNTAIN PEN / COMBINATION PENCIL in BOX

 

John

[EventHorizon]

Where pen/pencils very popular?

 

My opinion has been that they were popular as a novelty with some functionality (i.e. keep one writing instrument in your purse instead of two). I say "purse" because it seems that every pen/pencil I see is relatively small.

 

There were a great number of large combo's with pocket clips as well. I have seen quite a few that were longer than 5 1/2".

 

John

 

True. I forgot about the Remington combo I have which is at the 5-1/2 size.

 

[sztainbok]

I'd like to contribute to this discussion with my new find. This weekend, at a flee-market in Montevideo, I stumbled upon an Eagle Fountain pen and pencil combination. It is a chased black hard rubber pen, with two gold filled overlayed bands decorated with a floral pattern. The barrel is marked with the words EAGLE "PRINCE". The pencil end tip is knurled and works well. Turning it clockwise it separates from the barrel and if you push it back the lead extends. Turning counterclockwise allows the lead to be pushed back in.

It is an eye-dropper filling pen. It has a No. 2 Swan, Mabie Todd and Brad 14 carat gold nib, probably not the correct nib for the pen. The cap is threaded and it has an after-market chrome clip. The length with the cap posted is 5-13/16"

In the Fischler and Schnider book "Fountain Pens and Pencils", page 271, the authors claim that Eagle was the first company to manufacture the a fountain pen pencil combination in 1890. This example looks very much like the one on the 1913 Sears catalogue, except for the barrel bands. There are no patent markings on the pen and I am not sure if this pen is of the same design as the first combo manufactured by Eagle. Check out the picture.

 

 

 

 

[Vintagepens]

Nice find!

The nib is a replacement; the originals bear the "14K" mark inside a shield.

The behavior of the pencil end is typical for these combos, and indicates that the lead carrier tube that is attached to the turning end has come loose at the other end, inside the body of the combo. Just about every Eagle combo I've found has had this problem -- it is very much an inherent weakness of the design. In fact, I have one on my workbench right now, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to repair the mechanism so that it will stay repaired.

[rhr]

I wish people would stop repeating the old red herring that Schnell set off the wave of combo-making in 1929, because there were many before Schnell. I think it's time we stopped buying into the self-promoted hype that Schnell himself started, that is, that he was the first to produce a combo in the 1920s. His combos didn't come along until the very end of the decade, and there were many earlier examples produced in both the US and the UK that predated his combo. [see the FPN topic cited below.] In fact, the wave started in the mid-1920s, mostly in 1925, although many of the patents may never have reached the production stage. Here's a list.

 

Tallman, 1,417,642

Bartle, Glickman, & Jacovitz, 1,427,711, a piston filler combo

 

Joseph M. Gilliam, Dubel Servis Corp., see British patent no. GB222,868 , issued on June 18, 1925, and applied for in the US on Oct 6, 1923, but not issued. In fact, I think the wave was started by Tallman and Gilliam in 1922-25. Gilliam probably couldn't receive a US patent for his version of the combo because of Tallman’s patent, which pre-dated his very narrowly.

 

Lundmark, 1,479,996

Day, 1,495,890

Alland, 1,507,903

Detrick, 1,508,090

Slack, 1,510,613

Chen, 1,523,753, looking very much like a Waterman's combo with its barrel-end thread

 

Nudelman, 1,526,365, it even had a sliding lever like Schnell's, to which Schnell purchased the rights. See FPN topic Who was Nudelman.

 

Spang, 1,530,432

Waldorf, 1,532,284

Chesne, 1,533,162

Anshen, 1,534,629

Olsen, 1,538,055

Hofmann & Schroeder, 1,539,086

Visitacion, 1,554,769, and many others in 1926 and later.

 

Even Schnell's familiar airplane clip design no. D73,416 was filed and issued in 1927, well before 1929, but Sheaffer's design no. D78,794 for its combos was filed in 1928 and issued in 1929.

 

And how about patent no. 1,608,359, a "Fountain Pen And Single-Shot-Pistol Combo"?

 

You can find all these patent numbers, and more, in my book indexed under “Combo”.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

Edited October 22, 2008 by rhr

[Johnny Appleseed]

Thanks George,

 

So any idea about the Eagle pens, or the claim that Eagle made the first combo in the 1890s (quoted from Fischler and Schnider, above)?

 

John