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¢ and 10¢ fields. The four companies and their leading brands are:
5¢ 10¢
American Velvet Venus
Dixon Ticondcroga Eldorado
Eagle Mikado Turquoise
Faber Mongol Van Dyke (15¢)
About 40 raw materials go into a pencil.
It takes a month to make a penny pencil, six months for a 10¢ 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.