Featured Sterling Silver Sampson Mordan "Drop Action" Pencil-Holders

I think I shared one of these before.

Anyway, here's the other one!

I bought these two about a week apart, on eBay. The crosshatch one took a lot of flushing-out with WD40 before I could get it to work. It was CLOGGED with so much dust, gunk, crud, grime and grit that it was literally leaking out the back-end of it, and jamming the release-button at the top of the barrel.

Flushing and diluting with LOADS of WD40 washed out the grime and dribbled it out and wicked it all away - even if it took a whole day to do - and now they both work perfectly!

The smooth one is from 1912, the ribby one is from about 1920.

 

Very nice @Shangas!! These are definitely from a time when people actually used a pencil till it was no more than a nub.

 

Yes indeed. An era of REAL thrift. But being thrifty was no excuse not to be fancy while doing it, apparently!

I got the idea to fix the pencil with BUCKETS of WD-40, from a friend of mine. She's been collecting propelling pencils for decades. She showed me one of these drop-action pencils from her collection and I just HAD to get one for my collection.

When I bought them, I noticed how STIFF they were, and that was when she said to clean them, you just flood them with WD-40 to dilute the grime, and then just wash it out afterwards.

It's MESSY - but it WORKS!!

 

Sort of on topic but this reminded me of a tiny silver sword by his one time partner Gabriel Riddle that I had somewhere. After hours of searching,I finally found it again ! I must stop tucking things away as Im not as sharp as I once was and cant remember where I put it !I thought you might like to see it as its sorta related. Its 2 1/4 inches long. I had a thread on it at one point but dammed if i can find it.