Pencils, eh
A virtual museum of the golden age of the Canadian pencil industry.
I picked up this pad of Canadian Pacific Telegraph paper recently. I thought it would be fun to type out some messages on my Corona 3 typewriter. They also make a nice backdrop for these Canadian Pacific pencils. Because of the name on this pad of paper, "W.D. Neil, General Manager of Communications, Montreal" we can approximate the date. The 1949 CP annual reports also lists him in this position and I've seen several used telepgraphs very similar to this one from around the same time period (early 1950s).
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Burel was a Canadian pencil manufacturer in the mid-1990s. The company made both graphite pencils and colored pencils. It also manufactured pencils for businesses (mostly in its home province of Quebec). I believe the pencil below was made for the educational supply company Brault & Bouthillier. This company was founded in 1944 and is still in operation today. Below is another pencil with the B&B name and similar stars. This pencil was probably made by Eagle Pencil in the 1970s or 1980s. Definitely from before Burel existed.
This pencil is really stunning. It is red with lighter colored stripes running down the barrel (very similar to an Eagle Baton - 39). The font is quite unique with a wavy curve in the letter E... perhaps waving like a banner or flag? As in the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner... "O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ") It also has triangles before and after the name "Banner".
The company the manufactured it is a mystery but I'm guessing that it was the Eagle Pencil Company. There is an US made Eagle Banner No. 2. It is a bit different as it has a different number and no stripes. There ferrule is very similar in both color and style. This page focuses mostly on collecting vintage Canadian pencils, but I also occasionally share other old analogy stationery items. Over the Christmas holiday, I was given a Corona 3 folding typewriter that was most recently in my aunt's care. It had originally belonged to a previous husband of my grandfather's second wife. The typewriter has few issues but I think I should be able to restore it to working condition. This typewrite has serial number 289723 indicating that it was manufactured in early 1920 (making it over 100 years old). Here are some of the things that need fixing:
I started some general cleaning with water and dusting. They keys are all in good condition. From reading several other blogs, I know not to try to oil anything. I've ordered a couple of replacement parts (new feet and a new riboon spool nut) and when I get a bit more brave I'll disassemble it partially to continue cleaning and inspection. It is great to have a machine like this with a family connection.
This Popeye pen and pencil set was sold by Eagle Pencil Co. Canada probably in the 1930s or 1940s. While sold in Canada, it was manufactured in the US. I found a number of advertisements for similar Popeye pencil boxes from the mid to late 1930s in the US but I haven't found any from Canada. The ruler is probably original to the set but the pencils that are shown here, while older Canadian pencils, were likely added at a later date. A similar set from the US contained a pencil, pen-holder, 6-inch ruler, compass and eraser. The front of this box is faded but the back is still a vibrant blue color. I'm hoping to use this box as a template to make a new one by hand. Just need to get a copy of "Constructing and Covering Boxes: The Art and Craft of Box Making" by Tom and Cindy Hollander for Christmas!
The Dixon Encore is one of the few Canadian pencils made with Canadian graphite. In the 1870s, the Dominion Plumbago Company made pencils with Canadian graphite but the actual pencils were manufactured in the US. The graphite in these pencils however was of high qualities and they won medals at both the Philadelpia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and the Paris Worlds Fair in 1878. It was not until the 1930s that Dixon Canada began to manufacture and advertise pencils both made in Canada and using domestic graphite. These pencils included the Chancellor, the Actuary and the Encore. This Encore is round and untipped. There were several other versions of the Encore produced including 2486 (yellow tipped), 2488 (hexagonal untipped) and 2489 (blue tipped). The Encore was produced fro the 1930s or 1940s until at least the 1980s.
Vintage metallic colored pencils are pretty cool and quite rare. This Eagle Radiolite is a great example. Other examples of Canadian pencils with metallic paint were the Venus Lustro, Eberhard Faber Tinsel Tint, and the Dixon Nu-Glo and Semi-Glo. All quite rare and hard to find. The Radiolite name probably came from the popular wrist watches of the 1920s and 1930s (such as the Ingersoll Radiolite watch) whose hands were painted with radium to make them glow in the dark. These pencils don't glow in the dark and don't have radioactive elements in the paint either... just lead in the paint! An interesting post about these watches stated that they were popular gifts to servicemen on the front lines of World War1, "Because they were so essential for safety, glow-in-the-dark wrist- watches became a popular gift to send to loved ones in service. The adverts for these were pushed particularly hard at Christmastime: ‘Not only will a reliable watch afford him good service, but it will prove a real companion and friend.’ "
The 111th Grey Cup is being played today to decide the Canadian Football League (CFL) championship for the 2024 season. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are competing against the Toronto Argonauts. A great sporting even like this deserves a great pencil. Eberhard Faber Pencil Co. of Canada made these Grey Cup pencils probably in the 1950s or 1960s. I'm not sure of the significance of the number 1921 on the pencil. The 1921 Grey Cup pitted the Toronto Argonauts against the Edmonton Eskimos with the Argonauts coming out victorious. The pencils and card with the price in this picture are from an eBay auction quite a number of years ago (an auction that I didn't win). These are a pretty rare item.
I recently purchaed this vintage X-acto set. It is nearly complete with all of its original components. It is stamped with the name of the Canadian company that sold it, Hughes-Owens. Hughes-Owens started prior to 1900 as a manufacturer and distributor of enginnering and surveying tools. They sold slide-rules, drafting sets, levels, etc. This set probably came from the Halifax store, on Hollis St, sometime around the 1950s (see below an image from a 1951 catalog). I thought, "what a great pencil sharpening kit!" The block planer and the spokeshave remind me of the Høvel pencil plane. The regular hobby knife would actually be easier to use but it would be fun to give it a try. Perhaps I should start an artisinal pencil sharpening business like David Rees, author of How to Sharpen Pencils. My favorite comment on the linked video is, "I've never seen the line between serious and satire toed so masterfully."
This box was probably manufactured by the Eagle Pencil Co. between the late 1930s and early 1950s. Boxes like this can be quite hard to date. I'm still hunting for an old photo or advertisement that might show its original contents. When new, it probably would have been filled with a variety of school supplies such as pencils, crayons, pen holders, rulers or a pencil sharpener. Larger pencil boxes sometimes had a drawer with a compass or protractor or even water color paints. This case is in incredibly good condition for its age. The plane on top looks like a Douglas DC-3... according to Wikipedia, at the peak of its dominance in the airliner market in 1939, around ninety percent of airline flights on the planet were by a DC-3 or some variant.
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