JerryChicken wrote:
Great memories, there's nothing quite like taking a new pencil out of the box for the first time, better still if its one of those pencils that are just sticks of wood with no sharpened end yet, better even still if you have one of those old pencil sharpeners that clamp to a desk and mechanically grip the pencil while you turn a handle to sharpen it - the points you get on those are lethal
And there is a world of difference between a cheap pencil and a "good" one and you usually find that out when you try and sharpen it - its all trivial and silly I know but they are tools to me and a good one is like finding a good chisel that you never want to lose or lend to anyone.
One of the problems with pencils is that the lead can break inside the pencil if it falls on a hard floor. This means that when sharpened the point can keep breaking away. Eagle invented and patented a method of bonding the lead to the wood so that the lead could flex and not break on impact (chemi-sealed) This meant although more expensive to buy the Eagle pencil lasted much longer and was in fact better and cheaper in the long run.
To demonstrate and prove this to unbelieving teachers we used to bash an Eagle pencil on the desk and then throw it on the floor with gusto before slitting open the pencil to show the unbroken lead inside.
I remember one NUT Easter conference (at Blackpool or perhaps the Isle of Man) when we had a stand in the exhibition hall where teachers could updated their knowledge of books and educational equipment. Our stand was on the first floor balcony and a colleague was in full flow demonstrating a "chemi-sealed" pencil to a group of teachers and was a little more enthusiastic than usual as he threw the pencil onto the hardwood floor where it bounced on its end and flew into the air and over the balcony railings. It continued its fall landing at the feet of a snooty publisher on a book stand below. It may have been the Oxford University Press, Macmillan or similar.
It should be pointed out at this stage that the sales personel of these publishers were a snooty lot that considered getting their hands dirty by actually selling was beneath them and they always looked down their noses at those of us from the educational equipment companies that didn't have such hang ups. Any way this 'book rep' was so annoyed that his peace and quite had been disturbed that he chose to throw the offending pencil back. It sailed up from the ground floor and back over the railings to land at the feet of my colleague who cooly continued his pitch, picking up the pencil cutting it open to show the proof to the astonished and open mouthed teachers.
Throughout the rest of the weekend we had groups of teachers coming onto our stand for an encore.
