Pencils, eh
A virtual museum of the golden age of the Canadian pencil industry.
Picture a "Mad Men" style advertising agency conference room in the late 1960s. They are designing the packaging for a three pack of Venus Velvet pencils to hang from a rack on store shelves. They need to decide on what type of image to put on the card back... I can only imagine the conversation that led to this design. This is the first time I've seen Venus Velvet packaged this way. I also haven't seen Venus Velvet with two blue bands instead of 1 (although some of the Venus "Super Color" colored penils I've seen have two bands). Thirty-three cents for 3 pencils sounds like a deal to me. I imaging unopened packages like this are fairly rare. This one has a price tag from a Gambles department store. I had never heard of this store before I looked it up. Look like they were around until the mid-1980s.
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One of my favourite vintage Canadian pencil is the Venus Velvet. They were known for their high quality and also for their trademark blue band around the ferrule of the pencil. It was one of the most popular pencils of the American Lead Pencil Company. So popular indeed that when the company opened in Canada, the affiliate was named the Venus Pencil Company Ltd. Indeed the American Lead Pencil Company changed its name in 1956 to the Venus Pen and Pencil Corporation. I'm fortunate to have a number of these pencils in great condition.
Venus Pencil CompanyVenus Esterbrook Canada Ltd.These pencils date from the early 1970s after the Venus Pencil Company acquired Esterbrook. FaberCastellThese pencils are probably from the 1980s. Faber-Castell acquired Venus Esterbrook in 1966. They no longer have Canada stamped on the side and the printing is in gold instead of blue.
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