Vintage & Antique
Patented & Mechanical
Pencil Sharpeners
We can help you sell your Antique
& Collectible Pencil Sharpeners!!
If you have quality antique or
vintage pencil sharpeners similar to those that you see
on this page that you want to sell, please contact us at
LCM@AntiqBuyer.com
providing me with as many details as possible. Thank you!!
Sharpener Values
Antique pencil sharpeners / pointers
are, have been, were, a very popular office antique and
collectible, or not depending on your viewpoint.
The market for pencil sharpeners has changed over the last few years,
mainly because of eBay and the internet. Ebay, and the internet
intially drove prices for early pencil sharpeners to record highs, but
over time it overfilled the market and
has since caused demand to slack off for all but the rarest examples.
Fact of life!!!
I have bought & sold hundreds of pencil sharpeners over the past 15
years. We have helped disperse several collections, and have helped
collectors add some of the rarest and hardest to find examples to their
collections. It has been quite a while since we have been
able to add any examples to our sale pages on our
sister website
www.patented-antiques.com
our antique websales site. Not because of availability, but rather because
most sellers are looking for
prices from 5-10 years ago when in fact that pencil sharpener is selling for 1/2
or less of its highs these days, or the asking price when listed on eBay.
Here is a perfect example. Below is the Gould
& Cook pencil sharpener. Before
eBay and the internet they sold for a couple hundred dollars.
Then in the h
ey-day examples
were being offered for and selling for $1000-1500 on a good day. Truth
was though that most of that buying and selling was going on between
dealers driving the price up. Most serious collectors had it, not
once, but 2 or three times. The
correction happened after 6 of them were listed on eBay the same week and
it became obvious what was going on. Today they are once again selling for just a few hundred
when offered and sold on eBay these days.
That is the truth and no matter
what you think or want to believe it is still the truth.
Pencil Sharpeners are not alone in experiencing this sort of price adjustment, so do not
feel your piece is being singled out or made an example of. It just
happened. Just like it did with Beam bottles, beanie babies, lunch
boxes, Griswold and
every other collectible that got hot and then cooled off. It
happens.
History
The
heyday for inventing the better pencil sharpener seems to have been
from late 1800's right to about 1910 or so, with a few interesting
collectible versions in design coming from the popular deco era that were being produced into the 20's.
In general unusual and rare Pencil sharpeners that date from before or near the turn of the century
are the ones that are the most collectible and have best held their value.
The following pictures are of some
of the earlier and harder to find styles of vintage mechanical pencil sharpeners.
Values for these patented pencil pointers can range from under $100 up into 4 figures
even today. There are
a few truly rare and desirable patented and mechanical varieties
that occasionally pop up and sell for record prices.
Mechanical pencil sharpeners that perform their job through the use of knives or other unusual methods
rather than the later more typical ones that operate using
one or two roller mill /
cutters / burrs such as common and late Bostons, Dexters, and the
like are the more desirable.
The
pencil sharpener on the left is called the
Little Shaver or Handy, and it comes in a number of variations both in
finish and in simple design changes to hold the cutter, the pencil, or the
make-up of the swinging arm. Note the condition of that one with the original label
from a shoe store still affixed. Details like that greatly affect
value. These sharpeners sell in the 1-200.00 range on eBay these
days depending on condition and other variables.
I am also actively seeking
to buy different
variations of the relatively common U.S. Automatic Pencil Sharpener,
pictured on the right. This sharpener was patented in abo
ut 1906, and
several different variants of it exist. The example at the top of the page is a one-of-a-kind presentation piece
made by Asprey of London, which is England's equivalent to our Tiffany
& Co.
There is no value range for that sharpener as I obtained it through a trade, and
no other one exists that I know of or has ever been sold so as to track it's sale
price. The typical model U.S. Automatic pictured on the right generally brings
$100 or less today in so so condition. They use to bring $200 or more
depending on condition. I currently have one in its original box in
mint condition with extra blades offered for sale right now on our sales
site
www.patented-antiques.com.
Other variations of the Automatic that are known include a
leather covered model, or those with different labels or decals on the front..
There are also some with different bases as well. The same
company also made the pencil sharpener called the Jumbo which was the same basic
design, but a bit bigger and a bit more complicated, and it used a slightly
better design to turn the pencil instead of using the blade to accomplish
this task.
There are also a number of
foreign versions that are based on the same design that are available as
well. The Avanti on the left is an example of this type.
There
are a number of other sharpeners that are identical to this with different names
or housings on them. I have
been told Avanti sharpeners date from the 60's or later. Most
foreign sharpeners are also selling for a fraction of their once lofty
levels in today's market.
The
next picture on the right is of the patented Planetary Pencil Sharpener
which is a very graphic sharpener that
comes in a few different
versions as well. The one
pictured is a
later model, with the earlier model having the two legs attached at the
base by a bar between them, making the foot portion one cast piece. This
pencil sharpener was designed to be either a table
or wall mount and you swung the legs around to accomplish this after
removing a screw. These unusual antique pencil sharpeners never had
a cover and are proper as shown. They are also often missing their
shaving drawers. Once considered rare, the market for this sharpener
has softened as a large number of them came onto the market
and the principle or laws of supply and demand came into play. They
typically sell in the 1-200.00 range today on eBay.
This next
sharpener is interesting because you had to provide your own blade, as in
a pocket knife
to perform the operation. It is marked the Johnson's Perfect
Pointer 
and I have never seen another, or seen reference to one in any literature.
It is interesting to read the marketing blurbs that accompanied these
types of devices, all touting themselves to do the perfect job and usually twice as
fast as other devices, or the old way with the trusty pocket knife. There were literally hundreds of different versions of
pencil sharpeners that were patented and marketed back during their heyday near the turn-of-the-century and a bit before.
Some of these sharpeners originally cost
as little as $1 or less and were targeted generally at the masses, or
students. Other more complicated and dressed-up models, most
notably those pictured in catalogs for draftsmen and surveyors or the like
and generally cost somewhat more, and were targeted
toward the wealthier segment of the population. In general these are
less common and sell for a premium. The names of some of
these are the Quail, President, The Right, Dixon, L. E. B. Perfection,
Lakeside, and a host of others. Directed marketing the
American way.
Another antique pencil sharpener is the Rockford
Pencil Pointer, pictured o
n the right, and
named after where it was made in Illinois. It is hard to imagine that
this one could outperform a pocket knife, but that is what the ads said,
and what makes it a good one. Want to have a
contest? I will put my pocket knife up against any of these
pictured and be willing to bet that I would win.
This sharpener has also seen a large drop in value from what they sold for
for a short period, but it is still a desirable and pretty hard to find
one, and in the near mint condition this one is in would still sell for a
few hundred on a good day i would imagine.
Examples of
Select Antique
Pencil Sharpeners Previously Sold
The above pencil sharpeners are an example of the
caliber, condition and quality of these devices that I am primarily interested
in.
If you have quality antique or
vintage pencil sharpeners similar to those that you see
on this page that you want to sell, please contact us at
LCM@AntiqBuyer.com
providing me with as many details as possible.
Thank you!!
To see examples of antique
and vintage pencil sharpeners and office antiques
that I currently have for sale please go to our sister site
at www.Patented-Antiques.com.and
visit the office & scientific sale pages you will find there.
