Sunday, September 25, 2016

Subbrands of Subbrands

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

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As I continue to document and file away more “no name” pencils, I came across this one, with a cool perpetual calendar amidships.  It looks like a Quick Point, many of which share these colors, features and microscopic imprints:


I always look a little closer at these anyway, since once in a while one will turn up imprinted with “Kemper Thomas” on the clip (Kemper Thomas was headquartered in Cincinnati, which always does an Ohio boy like me proud).  This one, however, was neither Quickpoint nor Kemper Thomas:


It’s marked “Erickson Co. / Des Moines.”

And now for something . . . well, if not completely different, at least a little more obscure.  When I ran across the bottom one in this picture, I was sure it was a variant of the “Neldun.”


Neldun pencils turn up every so often, usually with a navy blue lower barrel.  I’m showing off a little bit by comparing the flattop example with a marbled green lower barrel:


However, that flat top and paneled barrel were just a little bit off . . . as was the name on the clip.  This one’s no Neldun:


It’s an “Allbright.”

1 comment:

Martha said...

There's really only one Erickson company in Des Moines, and that's Anderson Erickson, the dairy products company. They began in about 1930, and are well known in the entire state. It's still a family business, run by an Erickson granddaughter.