Tuesday, January 3, 2017

A Good Reason to Circle Back Around

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It’s been about two years since I posted something about this really cool Scripto boxed set (http://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2015/02/still-feeling-around-for-walls.html), containing a Scripto No. 33 “Duopont” complete with instruction sheet and “Sharpont” leads:



In the nearly two years since, I have found a couple more examples of double-ended Scriptos:


The top one is marked No. 33-47 on the barrel, and is very similar in construction to the No. 33 Duopont.  The lower one has ends like the later translucent Scripto school pencils, joined together with a metal center section marked only “Scripto Atlanta.”  Both are really cool, but since I didn’t have much new to report about them, these two hadn’t made the cut for an article here.

But then this turned up online:


Although this is along the lines of the one I turned up with translucent ends, these are opaque - not to mention that there’s five of them, on the original store display card.  Note that the name has been changed to the more intuitive “Duo-Point,” and there’s one detail at the bottom of the card that piqued my interest:


Patent number 2,362,727 was applied for by Blanchard D. Smith on March 23, 1943, and it was issued on November 14, 1944.


Although I was hoping for something insightful in these drawings regarding double-ended pencils, this “uno-point” pencil design does tell us one thing: it dates this store card to sometime after November, 1944 . . . and given the amount of metal in the barrels, I think it’s safe to assume the card dates to after the end of World War II in August of the following year.  My bet would be 1946 or later, after the American industrial machine had retooled to again produce consumer goods.

Finally, the reverse of this card provides one last detail:


A checklist of store display cards to watch out for in the future!

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