The Celluloid Manufacturing
Company, 1872 - 1890

     Meanwhile, Isaiah Hyatt convinced several wealthy investors to back the new plastic material, and in the winter of 1872-1873, they moved to Newark, NJ where the Celluloid Manufacturing Company was established on Mechanic Street. During this time, the Hyatts were also issued a patent for the first injection molding machine for plastics. In 1873 the word Celluloid was registered as the pyroxylin plastic's official trade name.
     The Celluloid Manufacturing Company produced and supplied cellulose nitrate plastic stock to a number of establishments that were licensed to use the Celluloid trade name as a prefix to their particular product or finished article. The gradual granting of these licenses served to test the acceptability of celluloid for a variety of products and also spurred the creation of new uses, with little or no risk to the Celluloid Mfg. Co. Of the many licensees, several prospered while others failed, but nevertheless, celluloid became established as a reputable product.
 
Competition in Pyroxylin Plastics

     The gradual successes of the Celluloid firm did not go unnoticed. By the 1880s, the infant plastics industry had begun to expand, and serious competitors were beginning to enter the picture. However, before we set the stage for the development of American pyroxylin plastics,  let's first return to England and take an objective look at the events surrounding the failure of Parkesine.

Xylonite and Ivoride

     After the closing of the Parkesine Works, Daniel Spill, the former associate of Alexander Parkes, made his re-entry into the field of plastics. In 1869 around the same time Hyatt was applying for patents related to his pyroxylin plastic, Spill reformulated the Parkesine recipe using a purer form of raw materials. He named the resulting pyroxylin plastic substance Xylonite and registered his enterprise (situated on the premises of the former Parkesine Works and his brother's waterproofing business) as the Xylonite Company. However his product fared no better than Parkesine, perhaps because of skeptical consumers, and by 1874 the company collapsed.
     Undaunted by this failure, Spill moved to a new site in Homerton and established the Daniel Spill Co. for the manufacture of Xylonite and Ivoride, an imitation ivory version of Xylonite.
     In 1876 Spill made an agreement with L.P. Merriam, who built a small factory next door to the Xylonite Company, with the intention of manufacturing finished articles of pyroxylin plastic. By 1879 Spill and Merriam had merged their two businesses to become the British Xylonite Company, Ltd. Business was slow for the first several years, but in 1885 British Xylonite joined forces with Lewis L. Hyatt (no relation to the American inventor of celluloid), who had been marketing waterproof linen collars and cuffs in France. From that time forward, business for British Xylonite improved; however a devastating fire caused the production of pyroxylin plastic to be resumed in Suffolk in 1887. 
     However, the story of Xylonite does not end there because a complicated patent situation regarding Daniel Spill and John Hyatt during the early 1870s had a direct impact on the American pyroxylin plastics industry.

Spill vs. Hyatt

     In the year 1875, Daniel Spill filed suit against the Celluloid Manufacturing Company for alleged patent infringement by Hyatt. The case, which accused Hyatt of purloining the use of camphor as a plasticizer, came before the Honorable Judge C.J. Blatchford in the U.S. Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. After five harrowing years of litigation, in 1880 Judge Blatchford reached a decision in favor of Daniel Spill. This victory opened a door of opportunity for Spill to profit, and he sold his Xylonite patents to Leroy L. Brown of Massachusetts, owner of the Graylock Paper Mills. 
     Under license of Spill and British Xylonite, Leroy L. Brown formed the American Zylonite Company in Adams, Massachusetts, in 1881.26 Two years later in  1883, the first American Zylonite products were commercially introduced including combs, brushes, waterproof linens, and small novelties. 
 
Celluloid Absorbs Zylonite

     In 1884 however, a turn of events led Judge Blatchford to reverse his previous court decision; it seemed that Daniel Spill had imitated Alexander Parkes' invention of Parkesine concerning the use of  camphor as a plasticizer in the manufacture of pyroxylin plastic, the very thing that Spill was accusing Hyatt of doing. With the decision reversed in favor of Hyatt, Spill was legally defeated. He left America, returning to England where he died of diabetes a few year later in 1887.
     On Jan. 1,1891, the Celluloid Manufacturing Company changed its name to the Celluloid Company when it absorbed several of the small licensed firms in Newark, as well as the financially struggling American Zylonite Co. of Adams, Massachusetts.
 
Celanese Corporation

     The Celluloid Company continued to manufacture pyroxylin plastics from their Newark-based factories throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century. It was acquired in the late 1920s by the Celanese Corporation.

This Eversharp Skyliner fountain pen was designed by Henry Dreyfuss of Celanese Corporation. It was a best seller for the firm throughout the 1940s. Produced in a variety of colors and metal combinations and made of two-tone striped and solid celluloid, it is believed to be the last Eversharp pen manufactured from domestic pyroxylin plastic.