Quick Summary:
- At some point, there was a comparatively dramatic change in the Blackwing’s length, color, and imprint.
- I hypothesized that this change could possibly be linked to Eberhard Faber’s 1956 relocation from New York to a state-of-the-art plant in Pennsylvania (pencilvania?).
- Images from the 1956-57 Eberhard Faber catalog did not support this idea.
- After comparing other catalogs and hearing from collectors knowledgable in such things, I’ve learned that catalog images are often inaccurate and cannot be relied upon for purposes of dating.
- Awesome.
I was looking through Dennis Smith’s excellent site leadholder.com and came across his examples of Microtomic pencils, which are close cousins to the Blackwing. This example is dated to the 1950s, but more importantly it is associated with the Eberhard Faber factory in Brooklyn, not Wilkes-Barre (image from leadholder.com).
The length of this pencil matches the newer Blackwings. Even though the given date was “1950s”—which could include the years after the move—the given location remains compelling. If the location and dates are accurate it suggests that the first of the longer Blackwing pencils were not from the new plant in Pennsylvania. The last of the shorter Blackwings then could possibly date from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s rather than to the late 1950s.
This thing about the catalogs is a real drag.
Sean are the catalog drawings supposed to represent actual length (scaled) or on the shorter ones such as 1957 perhaps EF were trying to emphasise the ferrule size and importance by shortening the barrel length. This results in a dispropotrionate image between ferrule and barrel.. I always assumed when looking at them that they were purposely showing shortened barrels in these catalogs. Maybe I’m just all mixed up.
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Kevin from what I can tell the shorter ones appear so in order to fit in the layout of each catalog. The longer one from 1954 was presented vertically alongside a Van Dyke, and they were the only two pencils on that particular page (see here). Almost all of the other pencils appear shortened as well. I think it was just a matter of saving space, especially when about half of the pencil wouldn’t have had any writing on it.
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Daft question, but were these catalogs primarily for the use of the retaller sales team or were they for end user use as well. If the former then I suppose it makes sense as you say, but if the latter, then the “stubby” ones don’t hold the same visual cache as the full length one – but maybe thats just me.
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I’m pretty sure these catalogs were for salespeople, as well as for resellers, and it’s more like the images are for identifying purposes than they are for catching the eye.
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