My father’s wife, who took care of him, died recently, and I’ve been going through a lot of his things (as well as visiting him with trained therapy insects!), including boxes of his letters and writing implements from his garage. My dad has a Ph.D. in paleobotany from the University of Montana, plus a number of other degrees. When I was in high school, struggling through Calculus, which I thought was tough going, my father was getting another bachelor’s degree, this one in meteorology. He’d sit with me at our dinner table doing his homework as I did mine. The math problems he had were so advanced and so difficult that I no longer felt sorry for myself with my easy integrals.
One thing I found in my dad’s garage was a collection of beautiful wooden pencils, accumulated over his career. He was an excellent scientist, mathematician and draughtsman, and he loved pencils also for their aesthetic qualities. Looking at these amazing pencils, a rainbow of colors, I perceive a now-vanished world of engineers, artists and writers who found them elegant, functional and beautiful. How many of these pencils are still manufactured today? Each is a different hardness, stamped with a code few people today even understand. They’re from many countries. Some are for writing on film, and say so on the sides. Others are from institutions like the Berkeley Public Library, or are curious mementos like the Blackfeet Indian Pencil.
I haven’t even started going through his collection of mechanical pencils yet.
My father collected pencils almost like fetish objects.
They came from many countries. “Moustache Brand” No. 2 smooth drawing pencils from Briarcliff, N.J. anyone?
He had several boxes of Chinese pencils.
Beside them were others from Germany (made in Malaysia, though) and Tennessee.
Utrecht professional red drawing pencils from Austria in various grades, plus a Kimberly 2H from the U.S.A.’s “General Pencil Co.” and a Castell 9000 H from Germany.
A rainbow of pencils.
Manufacturers used to put a lot of effort into branding their pencils. Does this level of love, effort, elan, still exist?
Some pencils were made triangular, so they wouldn’t roll off the table. Japanese pencils look like a package of chopsticks.
Steven E. F. Brown 
Hi there Steven.. I am a artist from Erie, Pa. I see this post is rather old but WOW.. I was completely amazed when I saw your post here about your Father’s drafting pencils. On and off for the last 20 years I was looking for a particular brand of pencil I magically came across that I absolutely fell in love with when younger (think it was from a artist friends, Mom’s art supply pantry of sorts) I used it to the bitter end.. and kept the nib hoping one day I would come across the maker. I mean all I can see was the rich red/and white at the end and some letters where the gold paint for the die pressed letters feel off. I could only make out the indention of the text somewhat. One day recently my brother said take a pic.. there is a app that matches images etc.. with like images online. I was like nah.. that won’t work. Impossible… CLICK instantly (search) sure enough your image for the Utrecht professional red drawing pencils from Austria came up. I WAS LIKE.. you gotta be &^%*** kidding me YESSSSSSSS!!!! That is crazy. Unfortunately now Utrecht here in the states or even around the world don’t create pencils etc like they used too. Just use the name as a part of Dick Blick art distribution etc. Anyways. If you can get in touch with me… If you wouldn’t mind I would so love to get one of those pencils from you.. that’s if you don’t mind AT ALL parting with it.. that’s if you still have them around. Or if they are guarded by hired guards in a vault somewhere. lol. Again… so very cool to see and read your wordpress blog here.. so sweet and nostalgic.
LikeLike