Finding Mary Jane
The photographs that illustrated this article were not preserved when the original site went offline.
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Anyone who collects has had the experience…a few pieces come together and interest is piqued. Slowly the group expands as more examples fall into place and in the process knowledge builds about the subject. Over time, with luck, curiosity and perseverance a collection develops along with an understanding of the time, the maker, the materials, the process and perhaps most maddening, what is missing and needed to make the collection more representative of the whole. In his family history William John Tully, Jr. great grand son of Joseph Patrick Tully, the man who established Eclipse’s Canadian operations in 1925, provides an overview of the pens made in Canada by Eclipse, and mentions… “Joe went on to develop pens for ‘tiny hands’. There were two pens that we know of, one was called the ‘MaryJane’ and the other the ‘Margie’. (MaryJane and Margie were Joe Tully’s daughters. ED.) These were pens for children and small women who could not grasp the standard pens that were really built for a man’s hand. Joe Lee has one of two Mary Jane pens that I am aware exist and I do not know for certain of any example of the ‘Margie’ pen.” (Joe Lee is the son of the Margie for whom one of the pens were named. ED) In an article about Eclipse models posted a few months ago, Eclipse Models I chose not mention MaryJane or Margie pens. Based on William Tully’s comments, I assumed that they were made in such limited quantity, perhaps as novelties for family and friends, that they were not put into general production; they would be a permanent blank in the collection. That was a bad assumption.
Small items, indeed.
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