Berol Eagle
A cool pencil
Amidst the assorted writing implements that litter my living space I found this particularly cool pencil.
I decided to google it and find out whether the Berol Eagle still soars. Wikipedia tells me, “Berol is a former British stationery manufacturing company, based in Lichfield. The company, established in 1845, manufactured a wide range of products including writing implements and art materials. In 1995 it was acquired by Sanford L.P., a division of Newell Brands, becoming a subsidiary of it until the last factory closed in 2010. Since then, Berol survived as a brand of imported products.” In addition to the classic old yellow HB pencil Berol also made acrylics, pastels, inks, crayons, adhesives, colouring pencils, pens and markers.
But wait there was also a Canadian Berol that made pencils. Pencils, Eh reports that the Eagle Pencil Company of Canada Ltd. was founded in 1931 in Drummondville, Quebec. In 1965 they acquired North-Rite Limited. In 1969 they changed their name to Eagle/North-Rite, which was a division of the Berol Corporation of Canada. In 1975 Berol became the company name to make marketing easier. In 1987 Berol was sold to the Empire Pencil Company but continued to produce pencils under it’s own name.
In the 1990s the company fell on hard times. In 1991 the Drummondville plant went from 90 to 30 staff, and their Toronto distribution centre was closed. The following year the Drummondville factory stopped production, but was used for some warehousing and packaging.
Now hold onto your hats friends because Prismacolor also has a Berol tie in but this time in the United States. Daniel Berolzheimer founded the Eagle Pencil Company in New York City in 1856. In 1938 the American Eagle Pencil Company launched Eagle Prismacolor Colored Pencils (these are still made today as the Premier Soft Core and Premier Verithin Colored Pencils). Berol Ltd. acquired Eagle Pencil Co. in 1969 and Eagle Prismacolor Pencils are renamed Berol Prismacolor Colored Pencils. In 1995 Prismacolor was purchased by Newell Brands.
If I had to guess I’d go with it was the Canadian Berol that made this pencil, with me being a Canadian and it probably having belonged to one of my parents who are also Canadians.
Let me know if you had one of these pencils or know more about it.
Update: The pencil clearly says USA on that so it’s probably the American one.
As Brenna Lee Mulligan says, “Get in the comments.”