Pencils, eh
A virtual museum of the golden age of the Canadian pencil industry.
Finding this set of pencils was a thrill. Chancellor's are not common to find, especially as a full unsharpened set like this. They were marketed as direct competitors with high end pencils from other Canadian manufacturers like the Eagle Mirado and Venus Velvet. Advertising for this pencil highlighted that it was one of the only pencils to be made with graphite from a Canadian mine. The Black Donald Graphite Mine served as an important domestic source of graphite during both World War 1 and 2. The mine was later submerged by the construction of the Mountain Chute dam on the Madawaska River by Ontario Hydro in 1967. Dixon's Chancellor pencil was available in Canada even before they established their factory in Newmarket in 1931. From what I could find, the Chancellor was made in the US for the Canadian market (similar to the Dixon Sovereign pencil). The version manufactured in the US had the number 2170 with eraser tip and 2171 without eraser. A. R. MacDougall Company, Ltd. headquartered in Toronto, ON was the Canadian distributor of Dixon pencils during this time. Below are images from the Bookseller and Stationer and Office Equipment Journal. A more detailed history of Dixon Chancellor pencils can be found here: pencilseh.weebly.com/blog/the-dixon-chancellor.
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Last week a ran across an old pencil left behind at the photocopier. It is not common to see a number given to a pencil without a brand name. This pencil ist stamped "Canada - Finest Quality - No. 358 HB Medium". Generic pencils often have a minimal amount of stamping. While it looks to be made in Canada, the manufacturer is a bit of a mystery. I think this may have been made by Eagle for two reasons. The first reason is that the ferrule is identical to the ferrule from a Mirado pencils, just missing the red paint around the center. In the picture below you can see that these ferrules appear to be brass plated aluminum. The second reason is the "Finest Quality" statement which is common on old Mirado packages. If you have any more info on this pencil, please reach out. Solving these little mysteries is part of the fun of collecting old pencils.
The story of metrication in Canada is rife with drama and intrigue... a grand vision with mixed results. The Metric Commission was established in Canada in 1971 to support Canada's conversion to the metric system of measurement. To help Canadian's make the shift, they produced lots of pamphlets, pencils and rulers which were given away. Pencils with metric measurements were given out in the 1970s with reminders of the new system of measurement. Like pencils produced for the census, they ended up in many household drawers and can still sometimes be found. Rulers were also produced. Since these were not consumable as pencils were, they are less rare. I see them occasionally in thrift shops and online marketplaces. The metric system was never fully adopted in Canada and while temperature is measured in Celcius and speed in kilometers per hour, other measures are still stuck in the old imperial system. The Metric Commission was disbanded in 1985 but these artifacts are a reminder of a time when the conversion was fiercely debated in homes and politics.
This short 6 inch wooden ruler has a really interesting story to tell. Here are two parts of that story: French Lines and the history of the Biltmore Hat Company. French LinesThe top of this ruler has a unit of measurement labelled "French lignes". The ligne is a historic unit of length used in France and elsewhere prior to the adoption of the metric system in the late 18th century. It is still used sometimes today in ribbon manufacture. The unit is included on this ruler since these ribbons are often used in men's hat bands and the ligne would be used to measure the width of these ribbons. There are 11.26 lignes per inche. This information is all from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne. Biltmore HatsBiltmore Hats Ltd., founded in 1917, has a long history in Canada. For a detailed telling of this company's story, check out this article from the Guelph Historical Society. After learning about this company's history, I checked out vintage Biltmore hats on eBay and now I feel like I need to add a vintage fedora to my collection of Canadian odds and ends.
The Cavalier was a pencil that appears to have only been produced for the Canadian market (as far as I can tell). It is described in the 1950 Moyer's school supply catalogue as, "a very fine inexpensive school pencil." It appears to have been made until at least the 1990s. Earlier versions were made under the Eagle brand name and later versions under the Berol brand. All of the pencils that I've seen have been painted red with a silver imprint although some early pencils may have been painted black. I much prefer the less boring red color. In the collection of Cavalier pencils seen below there is an early Eagle Cavalier. The reverse side of this pencil is stamped "Calgary Catholic Schools". The first Berol pencil included the rectangle logo. the last pair of pencil are probably from the 1990s with just the name Berol but no logo. The Eagle pencil is painted the darkest shade of red. The 181 pencil is round and untipped. The 182 is hexagonal and untipped and the 183 is hexagonal tipped with a silver ferrule and pink eraser. Perhaps the reason that these were only sold in Canada was because there was a Cavalier Pencil Company in the US although the Canadian pencil may predate the company.
I recently received an collection of religious souvenir pencils from Quebec that I wanted to share (thanks Silvie!). St. Joseph's OratoryThe pencil below is a souvenir of St. Joseph's Oratory. This church is located on Mount Royal in Montreal, Quebec. It is a National Historic Site of Canada and is Canada's largest church, with one of the largest church domes in the world. The Oratory is the highest building in Montreal, rising more than 30 metres above Mount Royal's summit. It is one of the few buildings that violates the height restriction under the municipal building code of Montreal, which limits the height of any building, including skyscrapers, from surpassing the height of Mount Royal. Below is another pencil related to St. Joseph's Oratory. This one includes a photo of Saint André Bessette, C.S.C. (1845-1937), commonly know as Brother André. Pope Pius XIIPope Pius XII was elected to the papacy on 2 March 1939. He was the Pope until his death in 1958. This pencil was probably made to celebrate his election. Pope Pius never visited Canada... the first pope to visit Canada was Pope John Paul II in 1984. Shrine of Our Lady of the CapeThe final pencil is a souvenir pencil from the Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape in Cap du La Madeleine. Cap du La Madeleine is on the shore of the St. Lawrence River halfway between Montreal and Quebec City in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. The history of this shrine goes back to 1634 when the first Jesuit missionaries arrived what was French Canada. The pencil shows the date AD 1714, which was when construction began on a stone church which replaced the original small wooden church. Now that I have pencils from two of the national shrines in Canada, I'll have to see if there are vintage souvenir pencils from others to complete this mini-collection. I know I have seen a pencil from Saint Anne de Beaupré.
I don't get out to thrift shops as often as I used to. And when I do go, it seems I less often find something of note. Yesterday, I was surprised to find a bag full of unopened stationary supplies. I was pretty excited. The bag had several packages of pencils, a Venus hole punch, a couple of plastic ACME rulers, some erasers and a bunch of hole reinforcers. Much of this was made overseas but a couple of the pencils were Canadian. I've seen the package shown above on Ebay in the past but never with the Commodore 64 contest. Contests are nice because it they provide a specific date. This contest closed on August 1st, 1985. The package has not been opened and so we don't know if this could have been a winner... there is a "scratch-and-win" patch on the card inside to see if you've won. I have several Venus Laurentien coloring pencil packages with the Commodore 64 contest but this is the first pencil product that I've seen it on. The pencils in this FaberCastell package just say "Canada HB" on them. Otherwise, they are identical to the Venus 1600 pencils in the other package I found. Packages like this are sometimes the only way to identify mystery pencils they have no manufacturer or brand name. You may notice that one of the pencils is missing its eraser. The package is sealed and the eraser is not inside so it must have come from the factory this way... not a sign of high quality. The product code on the front of the package is CDAP-10-HB (the code on the other Venus package was VP-10-SW). I'm wondering if this package was a bugdet set of pencils made for a bargain retailer. This package had a price tag on it from Metropolitan. This was a Canadian variety department store chain based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The last of the Metropolitan stores closed in 1997.
Hear are a couple of recently found Canadian made Eberhard Faber erasers. They are ready for retirement... world weary and stiff. The Pink-N-Ink 127 eraser has pink on one side for removing pencil marks and blue on the other side for ballpoint ink removal. These remind me of images from Lisa Congdon's blog and book "A Collection a Day". Day 1 is a collection of erasers. A fantastic website to take a strole through. This brings to mind an eraser mystery. At the Museum of the Atlantic there is an exhibit showing artifacts from the Halifax Explosion which took place in December 6th, 1917. One display shows artifacts from school children... pencils, an eraser and a marble. I've always thought that the Pink Pearl eraser looked out of place. While Pink Pearl erasers were made by Eberhard Faber in 1917, it appears that the EF logo and what remainds of the "Canada" printing on the bottom right don't seem right. Eberhard Faber made erasers in the US but not in Canada until the 1950s. and the EF between two horizontal bars logo also seems to be a 1950s or even 1960s logo.
In 1961 APSCO (Automatic Pencil Sharpener Co.) released a promotional free comic book. The Canadian subsidiary of this company was APSCO Products (Canada) Inc and was managed (and later owned) by Ralph Roger. The comic was Bozo the Clown and the Mystery of the Missing Point. In the early 1960s Bozo the Clown was a popular character appearing on many TV stations. The comic is just a 16 page advertisement for APSCO pencile sharpeners targeted to students (and teachers). I'm not sure how these comics were distributed. Perhaps they were given away at schools. Inside was an advertisement for comic character themed pencil sharpeners. They had lenticular printed eye stickers for eyes that commonly fall off (and kids draw their own eyes). The eyes appeared to be looking in different directions depending on which way you viewed them. They didn't say APSCO on the sharpener so unless you see it in the original box you might not know the manufacturer.
I rescued this Eagle Neon pencil from a thrift store a few months back. It has seen some better days. It has a petrified wedge cap eraser on top and it had a bit of ink spilled on the side... possibly from an old fountain pen stored alongside it. It has also lost a bit of it's bright neon pink color and the white undercoat of paint is showing through. Despite its appearance, it still writes great. I'm currently doing a master's degree in mathematics and I did much of my work in my last course with this pencil. A great pencil makes doing homework a more pleasant experience.
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