North . . . and Norther

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.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

Brown and Bigelow, makers of the Redipoint line of pencils (for most of the brand’s run, anyway) had one foot in each of two worlds during the company’s early history.  On the one hand, the firm was an advertising specialty company, and from the outset pencils marked Redipoint from the late teens bore the names of the firms for whom these advertising gimmicks were created. 

However, the company also saw the writing instrument business as an opportunity to expand its operations in a new direction, and the Redipoint – with its simple design and good looks – was also marked as a quality writing instrument in its own right.  William Ingersoll took this way of looking at things to a whole new level during the Redipoint Ingersoll days between 1922 and 1926, when the company produced higher quality writing instruments intended to go head to head with the likes of Eversharp and very few advertising pencils.

The “pencil for pencil’s sake” line of business reached its zenith after Brown & Bigelow reacquired the brand in 1926, just as the industry as a whole was switching from metal pencils over to hard rubber and brightly colored celluloids.  The Redipoint evolved into a commanding flattop pencil:

The chrome plated versions were marked simply “Redipoint,” while those with gold filled trim were assigned a similarly upgraded name: the “Aristocrat”:

You might think that’s why I have both of these otherwise identical pencils in my collection, and you’d be half right.  There’s another reason:

Both are salesman’s samples for Brown and Bigelow, identifying the Aristocrat in black and pearl as model number 69970, and in silver trim as model 69971 – and not only was there a Brown and Bigelow in St. Paul, Minnesota, there was a Brown and Bigelow, Limited in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario.