4 Replies to “The Thrifty Pencil”

  1. The “thrifty” Scot was once a familiar figure in U.S. supermarket advertising. Scot Lad was (is?) a supermarket house brand. Our local supermarket carried Scot Lad and touted its “McThrifty” values, even into the 1990s.

  2. Canadian Ticonderoga could not employ Ethan Allen and the patriotic, anti-British themes that identified the brand in the United States for decades, so they replaced them with Scottish motifs. Some of the blotters have quite striking images of Scots Guards and pipers, in addition to the humorous “thrifty” Scot. Here in the US, Wallace Invader pencils often used a tartan pattern on their boxes to indicate their reasonable price and at the same time, I think, evoke William Wallace.

    In Germany, there is a chain of inexpensive (but quite good) stationery stores called “McPaper.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *