Imagine my surprise - and delight! - to find upon our arrival that Patrick had pulled a number of items for us to view - including this mechanical pencil with my great uncle Lee J. Pape's name on it!
Here is a close-up view of the information on the pencil. I will use it in this post to help date the pencil.
The Overhead Door Company began in Detroit in 1921, and its Miracle Wedge was invented in 1925. The Overhead Door Company ribbon logo has been in use since the 1930s.
On the 1930 Census, Uncle Lee listed himself as a garage door manufacturer's agent, and simply as a manufacturer's agent in the 1933 Evanston-Wilmette directory. The 1940 Census says he is proprietor of a building business, and he describes himself as self-employed on his 1942 World War II draft registration, but these are not inconsistent with being a distributor for this franchised company.
On the silver pocket clip of the pencil are the words, "Autopoint / Pat. Made in USA". I wish I had gotten a photograph with a good image of the word "Autopoint," as the trademark in use at the time might have helped to date the pencil. The pocket clip is not bolted on, and that change, according to an Autopoint identification guide, happened in 1940.
The phone number, Wilmette 3437, is another key. That first appears as Lee Pape's number in the December 1926 Wilmette phone book. His number is the same in the 1945 Wilmette telephone directory the last one I could find online. A 1948 directory for nearby Evanston has numbers in the three letter - four digit format, which still could work for this pen (WIL-3437). This would tie in with the introduction of the North American Numbering Plan in October 1947, which also introduced area codes - not necessary for a local call, though.
All-number calling (ANC - seven digits) was introduced about 1958. According to the article "By the Numbers" in the May 11, 1962 issue of Time (pages 53-54), "11 million of the 76 million telephones in the U.S." were on ANC by that point, including many in the Chicago area (by April 1961). I could not find detail on when ANC was implemented in Wilmette, but in September 1948 in nearby Winnetka (included in Evanston and Wilmette directories around that time), telephones were converted to the two-letter, five-digit format around the same time as in Evanston and Chicago. I would think if that was the case in Wilmette, Uncle Lee would have changed his pens shortly afterward.
Therefore, I am guessing that this pen dates back to the 1940s.
© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.
The phone number, Wilmette 3437, is another key. That first appears as Lee Pape's number in the December 1926 Wilmette phone book. His number is the same in the 1945 Wilmette telephone directory the last one I could find online. A 1948 directory for nearby Evanston has numbers in the three letter - four digit format, which still could work for this pen (WIL-3437). This would tie in with the introduction of the North American Numbering Plan in October 1947, which also introduced area codes - not necessary for a local call, though.
All-number calling (ANC - seven digits) was introduced about 1958. According to the article "By the Numbers" in the May 11, 1962 issue of Time (pages 53-54), "11 million of the 76 million telephones in the U.S." were on ANC by that point, including many in the Chicago area (by April 1961). I could not find detail on when ANC was implemented in Wilmette, but in September 1948 in nearby Winnetka (included in Evanston and Wilmette directories around that time), telephones were converted to the two-letter, five-digit format around the same time as in Evanston and Chicago. I would think if that was the case in Wilmette, Uncle Lee would have changed his pens shortly afterward.
Therefore, I am guessing that this pen dates back to the 1940s.
© Amanda Pape - 2017 - click here to e-mail me.
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