Pencils, eh
A virtual museum of the golden age of the Canadian pencil industry.
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.
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The Dixon Chancellor is a relatively rare pencil to find. I recently found one in fair condition. The Chancellor was made by the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company of New Jersey before established a factory in Canada. I saw an advertisement from 1920 listing the Chancellor as well as other Dixon pencils for sale in Canada. The Dixon Company purchased the William Cane & Sons Pencil factory in Newmarket, Ontario in 1931 and established the Dixon Pencil Company of Canada. It is quite possible that the made in Canada Chancellor is just a re-branded Cane's pencil and likely made on the same equipment in the same factory. The Chancellor was made through at least the 1940s using Canadian graphite from the Black Donald Graphite Mine in Ontario. I'm not sure if Dixon ceased production of this pencil in 1954 when this source of graphite closed or if they found an alternate source of Canadian graphite and continued production.
Dixon had a nation wide advertising campaign in 1935 highlighting their new Chancellor pencil. You can see a few ads from newspapers across Canada below. |
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