Aikin Lambert pencils in base metal?

There is a tendency for collectors of Victorian pencils to dismiss examples in materials other than silver or gold (or gold filled). Figural novelty pencils in precious metals or with precious metal trim fetch far more than figurals in nickel plate. I'd always presumed that the premier makers of novelty pencils never made examples in base metal, until I ran across the following ad and article, both in The Publishers' Weekly, vol. 13, Mar 23, 1878:

The sea-bean pencils, in particular, are quite familiar to collectors, but being unmarked and devoid of gold, no one ever suspected that they could have been made by a company such as Aikin Lambert.