Swank Mechanical Pencil

Here’s an interesting little mini mechanical pencil. It measures 77mm long, (that’s pretty much smack on 3” for non-metric folk), and the body is 5mm square section. It’s a nice shiny golden colour, but no, it’s not gold.

Now you can use it as a pencil, as is…
Or you can pull it out of the body…Looks rather smart with that lined pattern. Quite classy really. I don’t know the correct name for that pattern – perhaps light godron? The eraser is unused but rather old and hardened, and stuck tight in the body. Anyway, the pencil is a tip feed as you would expect from an older 1.18mm screw mechanism mechanical pencil.

Stamped into the body is “SWANK, PAT. PEND.”. That’s the only markings on the pencil. So, a quick bit of internet searching, and now I’m just blithely repeating internet information here, so it could well be rubbish, but apparently Swank is a US jewellery company founded in Massachusetts in 1897. Originally they manufactured and distributed men's and women's costume jewellery and during World War I they made dog tags for the US military. After WWI they changed focus to produce only men's jewellery and accessories. They are still going today, and apparently their products are common in US department stores. (OK, don’t leave me hanging here, nip out to your local mall and confirm or deny this.)

Right, so much for that company history and unpaid advertorial. What exactly is my mechanical pencil? A few vintage and antique dealer websites show this pencil and most describe it as a mechanical pencil tie-clip.


Others say it’s a mechanical pencil money-clip.
Ha! I hope at least some of you appreciate that I had to dig my ties out of storage, and go to the bank especially for those shots - I don’t normally carry any Rutherfords in my wallet. Some unkind people have suggested moths are more likely in my wallet. How rude! The cheek of them! In case you haven’t noticed, most photos in this posting are clickable for hi-res. Yep, revel in the sartorial elegance of those ties.

Now, those sites mentioned above usually state the pencil is marked U.S. PAT. 124227 and some claim known provenance back to the 1940 - 50’s from Granddad. My pencil says “Pat. Pend.” so it presumably predates that. Some sites claim it dates to the early 1900’s. Anyway, however old it is, it’s a nice little novelty pencil and I’m glad to have it.