Charles Keeran And The Eversharp Pencil

[gregkoos]

Good article on Charles Keeran's from his hometown newspaper, The Pantagraph about his development of the Eversharp mechanical pencil http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/inventor-never-got-rewards-of-pencil-business/article_1941d5f0-ec13-11e2-83ac-001a4bcf887a.html

 

[Pickwick]

Thanks for posting an interesting article. The pencil has a timeless elegance with its minimal design.

[publishing guy]

Nice read. A lot of undiscovered genius up in Bloomington!

[welch]

Great story, and a good find! How did you spot it? I noticed the authoritative quote from David Nishimura, who knows a lot!

[gregkoos]

The article was written by my colleague at the McLean County Museum of History in Bloomington IL. He has a weekly history column in the local newspaper. The pencil in the Illustration is a Keeran era pencil that I gave the museum. Found it on E-Bay. I've printed out articles on Keeran for the museum archives - that's how Bill was able to cite David Nishimura's work.

[rhr]

Hi Greg,

You can tell your colleague Bill Kemp "Way to go" on his article about Keeran. But he got one thing wrong. He said that Keeran "decided upon .047 inch lead". He probably got that from Keeran's letter, p.1, which is posted on Robert Bolin's website.
http://unllib.unl.edu/Bolin_resources/pencil_page/keeran/1928pg1.gif

I know that the letter was typed by Keeran, and he typed .047" there, but it's a typo. It should read .046". Just look at the sides of any box of vintage leads, and you'll see that it says .046 inches.

And by the way, .046" is not equal to 1.2 mm. It's just a little shy of 1.2 mm, which is why .046" lead is a little bit too loose when used in modern pencils that take 1.2 mm leads, pencils such as the Yard-O-Led.

George Kovalenko.

Edited July 23, 2013 by rhr

[Vintagepens]

George, I would not generalize too freely about the actual diameters of modern 1.2 mm leads. Metric pencil lead diameters are for the most part nominal, which is why in most cases pencil lead sold as 1.1 mm, 1.2 mm, and 1.18 mm are interchangeable (and interchangeable with .046" leads as well).

 

Indeed, mechanical pencil manufacturers have gone so far as to sell ordinary 0.9 mm lead as 1.0 mm, presumably because rounding it off makes for a nice even number.

 

I wonder if Keeran's mention of .047" might not have been a typo, but that the number was also subsequently rounded off.

[rhr]

I wonder if Keeran's mention of .047" might not have been a typo, but that the number was also subsequently rounded off.

Aw, come on now, David, you "wonder"? How can I argue with that? Anything is possible. But can you cite your sources for your wonderment? Here I am quoting specific links to letters, and elsewhere I quote specific articles and ads from stationery magazines, and you want me to argue with possiblilties? Have you ever seen early boxes of lead marked .047"? If so, it would be a sort of mechanical-pencil-lead version of "Pat. Pending", which was later rounded off to the actual patent date. You'd think that Keeran would have mentioned downsizing and rounding off the lead size in his letter, but he doesn't. The nice thing about possibilities is that they can always be rounded off when they later turn out not to be true.

 

There is one thing we can be quite certain of. The lead in an Eversharp pencil is quite snug, and a lead that is .047" would not fit into any Eversharp pencil.

 

George Kovalenko.

 

[Wahlnut]

Gee, I have micrometered a bazillion (well alright, maybe half a bazillion) Eversharp standard, thin, 75, and marking leads. The square leads do have a diagonal cross sectional variation that could measure close to .047 but the square lead flats are .046. The later leads (round are .046. Nominality aside, I have sorted out many a non-clutch eversharp pencil that dropped 1.1mm leads out the front with little trouble by using .046 lead.

 

The thing about the eversharp pencils that were made after Eversharp took over was rifling. Making the rifled lead tube inside the eversharp pencil cone, was what gave John Wahl the "right" or chutzpah to claim HE "perfected" the mechanical pencil.The ad actually reads "The Mechanical Pencil Perfected." But that was what Wahl was all about vis-a-vis Keeran after the possibly engineered "fall-out" with Keeran. Obfuscation and smoke to cover their claims of being the originator of the pencil pedigree and diminish/marginalize Keeran's value to the pencil. If memory serves, the square lead that came out later, made rifling less important, because the diagonal measurement was snug in the round bore. Gee a case where a square peg fits into a round hole?

[kirchh]

The thing about the eversharp pencils that were made after Eversharp took over was rifling. Making the rifled lead tube inside the eversharp pencil cone, was what gave John Wahl the "right" or chutzpah to claim HE "perfected" the mechanical pencil.

 

I'm puzzled by this statement. The rifled tip was patented by Keeran on an application filed years before Wahl took control of Eversharp.

 

--Daniel

Edited August 15, 2013 by kirchh

[gregkoos]

I'll pass your comments on to Bill. He will appreciate the close argumentation by you guys.