Verithin vs. Thinex Colored pencils are made for a variety of purposes. School pencils, art pencils and pencils for the office. In the 1950s, colored pencils would have been found on the desks of engineers, architects, advertisers and accountants. Colored pencils marketed for the office were often hexagonal instead of round. They had hard thin cores designed for long wear and durability. In Canada, popular pencils in this category were the Eagle Verithin and Dixon Thinex. These two pencils were very similar and direct competitors.   A sad and sorry life...The vintage ink blotters shown below feature advertisements for Verithin and Thinex pencils. They paint a sad picture of the life of the average 1950s businessman. Working in Dickensian conditions... sitting at a desk all day tediously drawing thin red checkmarks in a drafty warehouse with broken windows and a leaky roof. Writing with a stub of a pencil and hoping that the rain doesn't ruin your days work.
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Eagle and later Berol Canadiana colored pencils were made in Canada from the early 1950s (this site states 1952) until the factory in Drummondville, Quebec ceased production in 1992. During this time, there were a number of different packaging styles. Below is a rough timeline of the different styles of packaging that I'm aware of. It is based mainly on old newspaper advertisements.  These boxes are all early Eagle Pencil Company of Canada products. I found several references online that the graphic design of these boxes was created by American designer Robert Foster in 1938.  Each of these pencils filled a special role. The drawing pencils were made in 17 different grades from 6B to 9H. The copying pencils were made in 4 grades: soft, medium, hard and extra hard. The writing pencils had ferules with erasers.  Eagle Turquoise Drawing 375 F  Eagle Turquoise Copying 4375 HardThe Canadian version of this pencil, with its long ultramarine blue end dip, looks quite different than the American version.   Eagle Turquoise Writing 1375 BWhile the pencil says 'drawing' on it, the box indicates it is a writing pencil.    Laurentian circa 1973, Canadiana circa 1973, Viva-Tone circa 1977 My son and I are fans of the CBC show Back in Time for Winter. The show follows a modern day family as they recreate life in Canada through several different decades (1940s to 1990s). In that spirit, I thought it would be fun to look back at the school supplies a typical Canadian student might have seen when back to school shopping in the 1970s. Colored pencils would have been a staple of back to school shopping lists. You would likely see colored pencils sets from Venus, Eagle and Dixon. The advertisement below from 1974 shows sets from each of these three companies all of which had manufacturing facilities in Canada.  Newspaper advertisement from August 18, 1974 In the early 1970s, older students would have been shopping for a slide ruler. Later in the decade, electronic calculators such as the TI-30 would become affordable. Do you have memories of shopping for school supplies in the 1970s? What was a cherished or wished for item that you had?
Sometimes it is hard to date vintage pencils and sometimes you get lucky and you can pinpoint a fairly exact date. The Canadiana Combo Set below is an example of the latter.  The great thing about this set is that it includes an entry for a back to school coloring contest that closes on October 30, 1976. The coloring sheet is the same as the design on the front of the package. It also states, "to enter color the black and white illustration of Berol's new package". From this we can assume that this packaging was new in 1976. I had previously seen advertisements showing this packaging in 1978 and 1981 but I didn't know when it was first introduced. So, do you want to try out a vintage coloring contest? I scanned the entry just for you! 
 The great thing about commemorative pencils is that they are often treated as collectible items from the moment they are purchased. I came across this pencil made by the Eagle Pencil Company in Drummondville, QC commemorating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. The pencil is in amazing condition, you could mistake it for new if not for the dried out eraser. I've seen this same pencil in white and silver as well as the gold one that I have.  The top of the pencil says, "EAGLE, CANADA, No. 1953".
The bottom of the pencil says, "God Save the Queen" on one side and "H.M. Queen Elizabeth II" on the other side.
The Eagle Pencil Co. of Canada Ltd. had a factory located in Drummondville, Quebec. This factory was located at 201 St. Jean St. in Drummondville.   This 1950s or 60s vintage pencil has most of the black ink worn off.
Around 1970 Eagle changed its name to Berol and continued production of Mirado pencils. Berol was purchased by the Empire Pencil Company in 1987 but they continued to manufacture pencils under the Berol name into the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, Sanford bought numerous pencil companies including Empire/Berol and not long after the factory in Drummondville was closed.
LinksEagle Canadiana pencil crayons were made at the Eagle factory in Drummondville, Quebec. This factory operated under the Eagle brand from 1931 until about 1969 when the company changed its name to Berol, the shortened surname of the company's founder Daniel Berolzheimer. I've seen written that the first Canadiana pencil crayons were made around 1951.
 The boxed set of eight pencils above is an early set. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautifully made sets of colored pencils to have been produced in Canada. Check out these photos of a similar set from the Pencils and Other Things blog. The pencils inside don't have the white imprint or area for a signature that the pencils below have.    The version of these pencils shown above has a spot for you to write your name on them just like the Laurentien pencil crayons. I believe that the stylized letter E trademark seen on the pencils below started being used around 1960.
When Eagle changed its name to Berol in 1975, Canadiana pencils continued to be produced but now with the Berol brand name. The pencil crayons from Eagle appear to start at number 501 (with Crimson Red) while the Berol versions seem to start at number 551 (also with red). I know that Berol had a set of 60 colours. I'm not sure how many colours were available in the Eagle sets.
The packaging above was used from about 1975 to the mid-1980's. The set of pencils shown below is a more modern version. The pencils are the same but the packaging and the gold lettering are changed.
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