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May 8th is the anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day. This day commemorates the day that Germany unconditionally surrendered its military forces to the Allies on May 8, 1945. There is a show on community television where I live called "The Past and the Curious." The show states, "An article can endure through time, but only its story makes it an artifact." I think the pencil shown below has an interesting story to tell. It is a pencil made by the Venus Pencil Company of Canada that has the patriotic slogan "There'll Always Be an England" on its side. In addition to the slogan it has the Union jack, a British bulldog and lion... all popular symbols of England.    "There'll Always Be an England" is an English patriotic song, written and distributed in the summer of 1939. The song became very popular as Canada entered the Second World War in 1939. The song was played on the radio and the sheet music sold 130,000 copies in Canada (published by Gordon V. Thompson who secured the North American copyright). Initially, the song was banned on the radio in the US which was still neutral at the time. Because of the popularity of the song, many items where made with the slogan, "There'll Always be an England." Below is a vintage Canadian post card with the slogan and a Union Jack waving in front of a military display.
Below is an envelope sent from Canada to the US in November 1941. The postmark shows that the letter was mailed on Nov. 20th, 1941 from Windsor, Ontario. It appears that the "Enlist Now" flag cancel was used in 32 different cities during the period of 1941 to 1943. I can imagine this letter reaching its American destination about the time of the Dec. 7th 1941 attach on Pearl Harbour.  Happy VE Day!
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There won't be a "made-in-Canada" pencil to mark the coronation of King Charles III but we can at least admire pencils from past coronations. A number of Canadian pencil manufacturers made commemorative pencils for the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Below is a pencil, made by the Eagle Pencil Company of Canada, to mark the coronation of King George VI in 1937.    Below is a very similar pencil, made by Eagle to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. It came in both gold and silver.       The vast majority of vintage "Made in Canada" wooden school rulers were manufactured by the Acme Ruler and Advertising Company located in Toronto, Ontario. There were other companies that made wooden rulers in Canada as well. One company, almost as old as Acme, was the Canadian Rulers Company was founded in Bedford, Quebec in 1939. Below is a 15 inch ruler from this company.  While Acme was purchased by an American company production moved overseas, the Canadian Rulers Company is still in business in Canada. The company changed its name in 1960 to Bedford Ruler Ltd. and now focuses mainly on production of paint paddles.  It is difficult to find much information on these rulers. The only mentions I found online was from several different Canadian Trade Indexes from the 1950s.  1955 Alphabetical list of manufacturers - page 315  1955 Classified list of products - page 848 |
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