Eagle Pencil Company

[DanDeM]

We've often heard, "We have to pass this bill to find out what's in it.", well

I had to buy this pen to see whats on it.

Condition/Materials:
Full size (13.9cm, 5.5" takes a #22 sac), solid brass pen, with enamel

paint; highly crackled.
Brass section, broad flex IGP nib marked Supreme 14k Gold Plate.
The inner cap is gone, so the poorly made, humped clip wobbles.

Design/Dating:
Lever fill cigar shape says 1940 something.
Clutch cap with friction fit section, is unlike other early clutch caps with

sections that screw into the barrel. So, not being a first adapter, the cap

design suggests perhaps late 1940, maybe even well into 1950.
But the solid brass construction seems more 1960.

(I'm running out of plausible decades here, folks.)

Finally...

Clip says Eagle Pencil Co US., the same company whose place in

Pendom history is marked for it's introduction of the first cartridge

fountain pen in the 1890's. ( A glass vial) Never a major pen player,

although they were and are very important in the wooden pencil

world, they went on to produce hinged barrel-cap push fillers, some

rather ordinary lever fills, even an additional brand, Epenco.

If in fact this pen is from the '60's, the company would be among

the longest running pen producers around, enduring a Great

Depression, two World Wars and that final stake-in-the-heart to so

may makers, the ball point.

Anyone care to put a date, say ±10 years, on this?

 

[welch]

My guess would be late '40s.

 

- lever filler: few lever-fillers after about 1950, when ballpoints began to work properly.

- pattern: the coloring seems an imitation of marbling. By the early '50s, taste was more for stream-lined objects.

- clip: attached high on the cap.

- material: my hunch is that brass would have been restricted during WW2; more for military use.

 

So...1947 +- a year or two?

[dreg]

I did the same thing recently with one of these, the price was low enough I had to get it just to take a look. The difference is mine is the same orange/red as a Big Red or RHR pens of an earlier era.

 

It is an interesting little pen. There seems to be an HR section within the brass friction fit section within mine, and the feed looks just terrible.

 

I will need to take a look again to see what the markings on the nib were, but mine definitely didn't have the markings yours does.

It definitely evokes an earlier time in pendom. In fact the reason I picked it up initially at the sale was because it looked like some old RHR pen that I would probably be interested in... then it was just too curious not to pick up for the price.

[dreg]

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/31041-interesting-eagle-pen/?hl=eagle

 

 

I knew we had discussed them before briefly. I hadn't really taken notice of the orange sac when I pulled mine apart, but I suppose that is interesting... After seeing white, black and green orange didn't really make me flinch the other night.

 

Johnny, if you see this do you happen to have a scan of that Sears catalog? I would like to see it! Or if anyone else out there happens to have one, please share.

[DanDeM]

My guess would be late '40s.

 

- lever filler: few lever-fillers after about 1950, when ballpoints began to work properly.

- pattern: the coloring seems an imitation of marbling. By the early '50s, taste was more for stream-lined objects.

- clip: attached high on the cap.

- material: my hunch is that brass would have been restricted during WW2; more for military use.

 

So...1947 +- a year or two?

 

 

Levers were definitely phasing out, carts ( and BPs ) phasing in during the

early '50s. Although Esterbrook kept pumping out levers until the middle

of the decade.

 

Post WWII is where I started, but the solid brass base on something as

discretionary as a FP at that time seemed unlikely. I would think that with

the housing boom that was going on, brass would have been cornered

by faucet/appliance manufacturers.

 

And then that clutch cap...this junker may be more innovative than I thought.

 

I'm going to settle on 1950ish.

 

Do you know of any other solid brass pens from that time?

 

[DanDeM]

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/31041-interesting-eagle-pen/?hl=eagle

 

 

I knew we had discussed them before briefly. I hadn't really taken notice of the orange sac when I pulled mine apart, but I suppose that is interesting... After seeing white, black and green orange didn't really make me flinch the other night.

 

Johnny, if you see this do you happen to have a scan of that Sears catalog? I would like to see it! Or if anyone else out there happens to have one, please share.

 

 

Thanks for the Sears reference.

 

Don't have time today, but a search of this is on the ToDo list.

 

From: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/11/a-century-of-vintage-sears-catalogs-now-available-online-on-ancestrycom.html

 

PROVO, Utah, Nov. 30, 2010 — Ancestry.com today announced that it is making available the complete collection of Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogs from the spring and fall seasons, spanning 1896 to 1993.

 

We may close in on this after all.

 

PS:

Took a quick look. Can't find the catalogs. But if they're not here, they've got to be somewhere.

[dreg]

Talked with a man who would know tonight at the AR Pen Club meeting. He put mine at 1918-1919ish. Like a dunce I forgot to write down which book it was he mentioned it being documented in, so I'll have to get my hands on that again. Either way... it really looks like a 1920's or earlier pen. He made a few other interesting points. Namely that the clip was sourced from Wahl and the lever from Swan. After he said it, it was plain as day - I have an early Wahl pencil with that clip on it.

[Vintagepens]

Talked with a man who would know tonight at the AR Pen Club meeting. He put mine at 1918-1919ish. Like a dunce I forgot to write down which book it was he mentioned it being documented in, so I'll have to get my hands on that again. Either way... it really looks like a 1920's or earlier pen. He made a few other interesting points. Namely that the clip was sourced from Wahl and the lever from Swan. After he said it, it was plain as day - I have an early Wahl pencil with that clip on it.

 

I would say the clip is modeled on Wahl's, and the lever likewise resembles that found on Swans (and Moores, for that matter) -- but surely neither was actually supplied by those companies. Put the parts side by side and the differences are obvious.

[dreg]

Yeah David, side by side there are definitely differences... I pulled out a Wahl and it's not quite the same. Rather close though.

 

I'll have to follow up a bit more.

 

Thanks for chiming in! These little pens are intriguing.

Edited May 14, 2013 by dreg