A special-order Heath pencil

As soon as I put up the pictures of my Heath clutch pencils, a colleague wrote to ask about the one at the bottom -- in particular, the inscription at the top of the barrel, just below the crown. It reads, "Every Pound Pulls". This was the slogan used by the Concrete Steel Company of New York City to promote its patented "Havemeyer Bar" -- one of a number of competing forms of metal reinforcing bars used in reinforced concrete construction of the era.

The ad above (Engineering News-Record, vol. 69, Jun 19, 1913, p. 90) nicely illustrates its form, which is replicated in the relief patterning of the pencil's barrel and crown band.

PS Heath also made "Every Pound Pulls" dip pens; a nice boxed example was shown in an October 2024 Facebook post in the Antique Writing Instruments group.