Eversharp Red Top Lead Display

March 29

Hi guys! I found this vintage Eversharp Red Top Lead display case online a couple days ago, and it just came in yesterday! I was looking for other examples of it online, but I couldn’t find any other like it. Can anyone give me information on it, like any guesses to when it was made? Also, it’s filled with a lot of 1.1mm square and 0.9mm leads. Some excess may be up for sale soon!

March 30

This is a nice piece. The Wahl-Eversharp company name was shortened to Eversharp in late 1940 so the display must be later than that. The tubular red top lead containers can be seen or mentioned in Eversharp advertisements from 1942 onwards and throughout the 1940s. So I suspect this display is from around that same period, although early 1950s could be possible too.

March 31

Hey, thanks for the info! Do you know anything about the rarity with this style of display? Most of the others online look nothing like it!

March 31

I believe the one you can find on Etsy is the same exact listing I got on EBay. The seller must have put it on multiple websites, but I definitely did not pay that much!

March 31

Nice find. I have vintage mechanical pencils using those sizes of lead. They are Autopoints.

March 31

9 hours ago, Misfit said:

Nice find. I have vintage mechanical pencils using those sizes of lead. They are Autopoints.

I have a few too, and they’re some of my favorites. They’re indestructible!

April 1

I got mine on eBay. Some of them were in good enough condition. One needed some love. Its cap was so hard to remove. I had to clean the barrel that the cap went on. Poor neglected pencil. But now the cap is easy to remove.

April 1

20 minutes ago, Misfit said:

I got mine on eBay. Some of them were in good enough condition. One needed some love. Its cap was so hard to remove. I had to clean the barrel that the cap went on. Poor neglected pencil. But now the cap is easy to remove.

It’s good to hear that you got it easier to remove, it stops them from becoming landfill. Luckily I haven’t had to do anything with mine.

June 24

Nice case! The display and the leads are from the early 1930's. The Eversharp font changed around 1939. And, The Red Top Leads in that (shorter) length fit the front loader pencils primarily. Those were made from 1915 to about 1932 depending on the model. The lead diameter is actuall .046" and .039" (INCHES). The leads were never a metric size. But will mic between 1.1 and 1.2 and .09 and 1.0. Some EVERSHARP pencils rifling will not work correctly with 1.1 or .09. But they will all work perfectly with the factory diameter leads like the ones i your case. FWIW Eversharp standardized these diameters and set the specs for the rest of the american pencil manufacturers because 1) Eversharp was the first succcessful mechanical pencil and EVERSHARP (Actually the Wahl Company" made the lead in-house. They kept the secret frmula doe graphite/clay misture. And they determined these lead thinknesses created the thinnest line coupled with the strength needed to not break too easily.

Syd the Wahlnut

July 1

On 6/24/2024 at 3:50 PM, Wahlnut said:

Nice case! The display and the leads are from the early 1930's. The Eversharp font changed around 1939. And, The Red Top Leads in that (shorter) length fit the front loader pencils primarily. Those were made from 1915 to about 1932 depending on the model. The lead diameter is actuall .046" and .039" (INCHES). The leads were never a metric size. But will mic between 1.1 and 1.2 and .09 and 1.0. Some EVERSHARP pencils rifling will not work correctly with 1.1 or .09. But they will all work perfectly with the factory diameter leads like the ones i your case. FWIW Eversharp standardized these diameters and set the specs for the rest of the american pencil manufacturers because 1) Eversharp was the first succcessful mechanical pencil and EVERSHARP (Actually the Wahl Company" made the lead in-house. They kept the secret frmula doe graphite/clay misture. And they determined these lead thinknesses created the thinnest line coupled with the strength needed to not break too easily.

Syd the Wahlnut

That’s so cool that you could give me a rough date for when it was made. Originally I was guessing the 1950s. Got any clue as to how many of these survive today?

July 2

I admit that Syd's comment on the font of the Eversharp logo left me confused, because the Wahl-Eversharp logo of the early 1930s looks quite different to what is seen on the display. The characters of the early (Wahl)-Eversharp logo had a slight 'twist', i.e. the left bottom of the character sits slightly lower than the right bottom of the character. This aspect can be seen in Eversharp logos (advertisements and catalogs) from the early 1920s to about 1943. From 1943 onwards, the characters of the logo were placed in a straight line, although the older logo was used until at least the end of 1944. All advertisement from 1945 onwards show the logo with characters in a straight line. Between 1945 and 1951 the font underwent only subtle changes (especially in the characters "R" and "P"), but these might be important for dating the display.

This is the comparison of logos by year, all logos come from official Eversharp ads, except the last one which is the logo on the display:

July 3

17 hours ago, joss said:

I admit that Syd's comment on the font of the Eversharp logo left me confused, because the Wahl-Eversharp logo of the early 1930s looks quite different to what is seen on the display. The characters of the early (Wahl)-Eversharp logo had a slight 'twist', i.e. the left bottom of the character sits slightly lower than the right bottom of the character. This aspect can be seen in Eversharp logos (advertisements and catalogs) from the early 1920s to about 1943. From 1943 onwards, the characters of the logo were placed in a straight line, although the older logo was used until at least the end of 1944. All advertisement from 1945 onwards show the logo with characters in a straight line. Between 1945 and 1951 the font underwent only subtle changes (especially in the characters "R" and "P"), but these might be important for dating the display.

This is the comparison of logos by year, all logos come from official Eversharp ads, except the last one which is the logo on the display:

Judging by the logos you posted, I want to say it can’t be older than 1943. It’s odd that you can’t really get a definitive answer on even what decade it was made. Would the style of the lead containers be of any help? I know that they also went through some changes over the years.

July 3

2 hours ago, HKoch04 said:

Judging by the logos you posted, I want to say it can’t be older than 1943. It’s odd that you can’t really get a definitive answer on even what decade it was made. Would the style of the lead containers be of any help? I know that they also went through some changes over the years.

Yes indeed. In 1949 the font of the characters "R" and "P" in "Eversharp" became slightly less rounded, and to me the 1949-51 logo most closely resembles that on the display.

These displays usually had a paper glued on the back: the paper listed the pencils from the major manufacturers of the time and the accompanying Eversharp lead they could take. Is that list still present? It might be an important help in dating the display.

July 3

7 hours ago, joss said:

Yes indeed. In 1949 the font of the characters "R" and "P" in "Eversharp" became slightly less rounded, and to me the 1949-51 logo most closely resembles that on the display.

These displays usually had a paper glued on the back: the paper listed the pencils from the major manufacturers of the time and the accompanying Eversharp lead they could take. Is that list still present? It might be an important help in dating the display.

Yeah, the list is still there. It’s torn up and hard to see, but you can definitely read some parts of it.

July 4

I must admit the line-up of advertisement fonts and the adjustment to them is compelling. Kudos for the work that it must have taken especially to align and size them like that. If we assume that ad fonts and dispaly cabinet fonts were uniformly applied, the 1940s dating may be logical. And yet the very array shows progressions AND reversals too. Based on that array, the V is most telling to me as the serif is dropped after 1940 only to reappear in 1945 on the RED TOP LEAD ad. If we base the dating on the font alone, as show on these ads, I must recant the 1930s dating I offered up.