Untangling (a small piece of) Sanford’s web

Pencil aficionados are aware that many of the pencil brands of yesteryear are now owned by Sanford, a division of the huge conglomerate Newell-Rubbermaid.

Sanford has acquired a lot of brands over the years, including hundreds of pencil names once owned by Eberhard Faber.

As a global firm, the offerings vary from market to market. Sanford Venezuela still makes the Mongol, and Berol UK (also in the family) still make the Venus and a Mirado version. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Here, we’ll take a look at Sanford’s US woodcase graphite pencil offerings, extracted from their website.

On the graphite side, there are two brand labels used – Papermate, and Sanford. Papermate offers the writing/office pencils, while Sanford handles the art/drawing pencils.

Oh, and one other pencil on the Sanford side – the Eagle Golf pencil. Ouch. One of the great names in pencil history has been reduced to hawking golf pencils.

I suspect that we won’t be seeing anything new on the pencil front from Sanford. Between competition from inexpensive Chinese made pencils and a declining market, Sanford/Newell-Rubbermaid seem to have decided to put their energy elsewhere.