Norma Multicolor multicolor pencils
Norma Pencil Corporation USA
Stand: 14.02.2026
In connection with Norma USA is usuallyRoger Russelcalled. He died in 2021 and his website is partly offline.You can find the archived pagehere.
Not all of the information there is correct.Nevertheless, the visit is worth it to find out about the mines, etchers or variants.
The story of Norma USA
It was created around the 1930sNorma Multicolor, Inc.in New York, USA.From the name, it seems to have been founded specifically for multi-colored pencils, which was more common at the time.
Enough for thisHans Maucherpatents that covered various mechanisms.
What kind of relationship Norma Multikolor had with the Fend brothers or Albert Hirth is unclear.
Around 1950 Norma Multikolor Inc. becameNorma Pencil Corporationrenamed and had the address "Norma Building, 137 West 14th Street, New York 11, N.Y".
The company's history ends in 1967.
In terms of mechanism, no major innovations were ever created. Fend alone had pen models with each of the principles presented below.
But Norma Multikolor managed to pack the well-known ideas into elegant cases that deserve our attention.
1935The first modelUS2067455
The locking principle is identicalNorma von Fend and Albert Hirth respectively. The lead holder snaps into the opening below its guide slot with its locking tongue and is moved into the starting position by a compression spring when the tongue is pressed in again.
1936The second modelUS2108441
This finding is called a bayonet closure. The slider is pushed down and then sideways into the curve. Pushing back into the straight slider path leaves the slider
here too, it snaps back into the starting position using a compression spring.1940The third modelUS2259649
I call this type of mechanism a 'leaf spring slide mechanism'.The slider is activated using aLeaf spring of his lead holderpushed out of the slide slot. The shape of the slider is important: It has a widening in the middle, which forms a locking position with one of the cross slots in the slider slot.
Only when the slider is pressed down does the widening in the pen body disappear, so that the slider can be freely pushed up and down manually to any desired position to adopt a different locking position or to briefly push the lead holder particularly far forward so that the lead holder can be better grasped and rotated to advance the lead.
The third version was the final one and was the most heavily promoted.
Versions were available in 3 and 4 colors, with a ballpoint pen refill (the tip of which could be removed to refill ink), and in different materials.
In addition to chrome-plated, silver-plated and gold-plated surfaces, there were also pens made entirely of 92.5% silver, gold orMonelfiles.
The aim was to encourage people to collect all variants with their own elegant Norma suitcase.
