Kimberly Ballpoints 3

Following up on my last post on Kimberly Ballpoints, here is the promised third and final installment . The pens below are a bit different to the other previously cleaned and restored in that they cover three groups of the original Kimberly’s that I have not previously shown ~ Ladies, Gold, and Boxed.

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The following advertisement, featuring New York fashion designer Hattie Carnegie,  is from 1947, and focuses on the ladies version of these pens.

Below are the three pens – a ladies blue, standard black (both with silver bands – 4.95 model), and a 14K gold filled version.  Cleaning involves removing the messy refills which have often clogged up the barrel and cap.  Cleaning the insides and polishing the outsides.   Be careful to not get too aggressive with the 14K wash, as it will begin to rub off with too much polishing.  I recommend maybe a short bath in an ultrasonic cleaner and a gentle rub down with a jewelers cloth.

Finished products below, both closed and posted.  I refill these (as previously mentioned) with carefully trimmed Cross Ballpoint refills.  The blue is probably the brighter blue, marketed as Blue Gabardine in the advertisement above.  Marketed to women was through advertisements such as Ms. Carnegie’s, comparing it to a tube of lipstick, as opposed to the darker more traditional colors, marketed through ads with Humphrey Bogart and Fred McMurray, comparing the pens to cigarettes.

Finally, I have one pen in my collection in its original box and price sticker. This one is the darker green version with the less expensive chrome band and the $4.95 price tag is still visible on the barrel.

My favorite aspect of the box is the cover, which shows some of the brightest (and harder to find) colors available to the model.

Finally, as an addendum, I recently picked up 5 advertising Pockettes, highlighted and promoting the El Rancho Vegas Hotel.   Interestingly, this was the first Hotel/Casino built on the Las Vegas Strip (1941).  It was destroyed by fire in 1960 and never rebuilt.  Somehow, these survived.   They are another example of how Eversharp used this line of pens – to businesses to promote their product, and to thank clients.   Note that the bottom pen is a bit different in configuration than the others.  It is actually a later model of the original, with a smaller cap ring.

This is my third Eversharp Pockette post.  Thank you for allowing me to deviate from the Fountain Pen theme occasionally.  As we hunt for fountain pens, we can’t help but run into their less expensive cousins – cousins that contributed to the Fountain Pen’s demise.

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