The pencil industry has seen lots of mergers and acquisitions over the years. Sometimes this results in a change in company name. The Eagle Canada Pencil of Company Limited acquired North-Rite Limited in 1965. At the time, Eagle was Canada's largest manufacturer of pencils and pens. North-Rite was a major Canadian manufacturer of ballpoint pens, mechanical pencils and fountain pens. North-Rite was run as a subsidiary company of Eagle Pencil for some time. In about 1969, Eagle changed its name to Eagle/North-Rite Limited. By 1975 the name had changed again to Berol. This allows pencils that were packaged in boxes with the Eagle/North-Rite name to be fairly accurately dated to this period of time. Below are a few examples of these.

The pencil shown here has a paper ferule indicating it was probably made in the 1940s during World War II when metal was reserved for the war effort. It is also stamped "Canadian Graphite" indicating it was probably made by Dixon Pencil Inc. This was the only company I know of that used graphite from an mine in Ontario and stamped there pencils with this phrase.

The next time I'm around Yarmouth, I'll have to stop in to the Red & White Dayton Food Store to connect with a bit of history.