In Search of Kirby's Pencil

A few years back, I shared a story from Joe Field about Jack Kirby's last pencil. Well, one of Jack's last pencils at any rate. It was taken from Jack's drawing table right after he passed away in 1994 and was mounted in a sort of plaque that was shared among some California comics retailers. Joe found this much better photo recently, which highlights exactly which ones would've had it.

Where it is now, though, we don't know.

The last clue we're able use to place it is Rory Root had it at Comic Relief for a period before that shop closed in early 2011. @JLcomics noted that it was still at the shop when he worked there and shared this photo, where you can see the pencil in the upper left on the top shelf...

The image is low-res enough that it's hard to make out details, but I believe the comic on the second top shelf on the very far left is a variant edition of The New Avengers #3, which is cover dated October 2010. That would effectively place the pencil in Comic Relief pretty much as the store closed.

The question is: what happened to it after that? The Comic Relief store itself was later re-opened as Fantastic Comics, but Comic Relief's actual stock went to The Escapist Comic Bookstore. Did they get Jack's pencil as well? I've looked through what photos I can find of the store (there are plenty here) but I don't see anything resembling the mounted pencil.

Can anyone out there stop by the store to look for it? Maybe ask owner Jack Rems? Did it get dropped in a box for storage, passed along to a friend, sold..?

I don't think there's a ton we'd be able to learn from it, but I think it would be cool to have that artifact around. If anyone has information on this, please let either myself or Joe Field know!

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