Pencils

Six companies make most of the world's pencils. Four are in the U. S. Three are owned by families. All are over 70 years old. Standard pencils are in the 5-c- and 10-c- fields. The four companies and their leading brands are:

5-c- 10-c-

American Velvet Venus

Dixon Ticondcroga Eldorado

Eagle Mikado Turquoise

Faber Mongol Van Dyke (15-c-)

About 40 raw materials go into a pencil.

It takes a month to make a penny pencil, six months for a 10-c- pencil. Cedar wood is best. When the cedar forests of the South began to be exhausted the pencil-makers frantically bought cedar fences and log cabins but now the West's cedar stands, although inferior in quality, are considered adequate. A good pencil could draw a line from 35 to 70 mi. long before it was worn out. One of the best of recent pencil years was 1927. Lead Pencil Institute reported 6,100,000 gross of pencils valued at $14,477,000 sold that year. In 1930 sales of $11,763,000 were realized on 5,386,000 gross. Imports are fractional compared to U. S. manufacturing. But a hardy competitor of U. S. pencils is the KohInoor, imported from Czechoslovakia. It was the first scientifically graded drawing pencil on the world market and draftsmen are inclined to demand it despite the 33.'% lower gross cost of U. S.-made pencils. The yellow KohInoor was the first fine quality pencil.

Elementary facts about the big U. S. pencil four:

American. Pride of American Lead Pencil Co. is its Venus, world's only green crackle-finished pencil. The company was incorporated in 1886 but has been in business for a good 70 years. Its president is Sam Joseph Reckford. whose father Joseph Reckendorfer was an original partner in Eagle Pencil Co. His tall nephew John King Reckford. inventor of the present method of painting the Venus, is vice president. Secretary and treasurer is his son Joseph Reckford. Nothing would so delight Joseph Reckford as to hear people say, ''Look, look, there goes the Pencil King!"

Dixon. Sea captains, returning to Salem from far-off ports, used to bring back graphite. About 1827 Joseph Dixon began buying graphite and making crucibles out of it. He died in 1869. Twelve years later. E. F. C. Young reorganized the company, began making pencils. Joseph Dixon Crucible Co. is the one pencil concern whose stock can be bought by the public. It is also one of the largest makers of crucibles, lubricants, paint and other graphite products. It does not report earnings but stockholders have received generous dividends--$110 a share in 1914. $50 in 1916, $100 in 1917, $50 for the next two years. $17.50 and a stock dividend of 150 in 1920. The present rate is $4. Typical of a big company's line are such Dixon brands as the green Anglo-Saxon, blue Rapid Writer, Thinex, black Beginners, Lumber Crayon, red-white-&-blue Uncle Sam, buff & blue Bicentennial, purple Violo.

Eagle. The mouth-twisting name of a pencil firm started in 1856 was Berolzheimer, Illfelder & Reckendorfer. Later it became Eagle Pencil Co. It makes fountain pens, has the largest timber reserves of any U. S. pencil company, boasts of having invented the inserted eraser and indelible pencil. It is run by the three great-grandsons of Founder Daniel Berolzheimer. President Edwin, redheaded, mustached, a collector of armor, lately said: "I'm the most active but I am not so active either."

Faber. In 1761 Fabers began making pencils in Bavaria. In 1849 they sent Eberhard Faber to the U. S. to conduct the business. In 1861 he quarreled and started Eberhard Faber Pencil Co. His son & namesake represents the fifth generation of pencil-making Fabers and is famed in the industry although he is vice president of the company while his brother, Lothar, is president. He is chiefly active in the sales department now,, Lothar in manufacturing.

Faber invented the nickel-plating of pencil tips, pencil point protectors, rubber tips. In its line are the Mongol colored pencils ("Paint with Pencils"), weatherproof pencils, eyebrow pencils. Newspapermen like its Black Knight, a blunt pencil not likely to break in a crisis. Faber claims to be the largest maker of erasers and recently offered rubber bands in pastel shades. It is thought to make 25% of popular-priced pencils. Its line comprises 250 varieties not including various degrees of hardness which sometimes run as high as 18 to a pencil.

For some time price-cutting has unsettled the industry, intensified the great competition bound to exist when four producers dominate so involved a market. Last week Eberhard Faber made a formal statement of what its future sales policy will be. It will make no direct sales to consumers; no sales to distributors whose prices are unfair to other distributors; no sales to small dealers (properly the wholesaler's field); an attempt to sell pencils only to people who violate no other person's field in reselling them. While price-fixing is illegal, such attempts to maintain a fair price are not, and what will come of a united pencil front may prove to be a good example for other manufacturers.

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