Sometimes pencils need a home, and one fine traditional home is the pencil box.
I’m sure I once had a nice wooden box of Blackfeet pencils, but I can’t find it. So, I decided to take a look around for other pencils still sold in wooden boxes. Here is what I found.
One place I looked is on Ebay, where I picked up this second hand box. The box is austere yet functional, with a sliding lid. It looks just like an archetypal old pencil box. The underside is stamped Neiman Marcus. I just looked at the Neiman Marcus website, and they still sell boxes of pencils – in no less than faux crocodile with matching box, though there is no offer of customization.
Inside the box are a dozen or so pencils, and it looks like it could easily accommodate a dozen more. The pencils have a person’s name stamped in gold letters. There is a title, initials, and a surname. The title might be civilian or military, and I’ll guess these were working pencils on an official desk.
The pencil, unfinished, is somewhat rough to hold, and the lead is a slightly scratchy light H or so grade. Still, they do the job. While there are novelty pencils aimed at children with pre-printed names (too bad if you have an unusual name), I don’t think a lot of adults today get their own name printed on a pencil. Too bad. This is a very nice grown up and practical appreciation of the pencil.
