Sunday, February 18, 2018

The "World's Largest Manufacturer of Shoes"

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; 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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An Tran had this one to offer at the DC Show:


I had to buy it, not just because the color is really nice, but because it has a name on the clip I hadn’t seen before:


“Sundial Shoes,” a company which in the 1950s marketed itself as “The World’s Largest Manufacturer of Shoes.”  Although it’s usual to see custom made clips rather than an imprint on a barrel on an advertising piece, I was fairly confident this was not made by a shoe company and I wondered who might have made it for them.

I think I have my answer.  Here it is shown next to a Trupoint, the Sears brand manufactured by Eclipse (see https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2014/12/stepping-it-up.html):


Note the same top and the same tip, although the clip is quite different and the Trupoint is a bit shorter.  So let’s put it next to another Trupoint:


There you go.  Same length, same clip, same everything but the cap (but by the way, you can interchange them and they fit each other).  No doubt in my mind this is an Eclipse-made pencil.

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