The Master Copying Pencil

Dixon's Eldorado is probably best known as a brand of drawing pencils. Dixon called it them the "master drawing pencil".  The brand name Eldorado was also given to their copying pencils. The set shown below probably dates to the early days of the Canadian Dixon factory in Newmarket, Ontario which opened in 1931.   I'm guessing these pencils date from the late 1930s or early 1940s... before cheap ballpoint pens were popularized.

The box for these pencils was made with a deep purple color and gold printing. This box is a bit worn but still in decent condition given its age.

"The convenience of copying pencils prior to the introduction of ball-point pens was widely appreciated. In 1916, Mitchell observes that “at the present time [copying pencils] are but seldom employed for copying purposes, but are commonly used for producing writing which cannot
be erased so readily as the marks of a lead pencil.” In many ways, these pencils can be viewed as a predecessor to the ball-point pen. They were convenient (no need to continually dip one's pen into the ink well), provided firm pressure (superior to fountain pens of the time), and generated relatively permanent markings. Their usefulness is demonstrated by the wide range of applications to which
they were enlisted."  - Liz Dube, The Copying Pencil: Composition, History, and Conservation Implications