Make art with a piece of art," the company's first advertisement read. In May, 2022, The Legendary Pencil Company, LLC was formally organized to acquire the failed Autopoint's assets, and by late June 2022, Legendary Pencil began manufacturing pencils using NOS parts on hand, and with an entirely different business model. The owners of the building researched who might have interest in these assets, and before long they made contact with the man who literally wrote the book about the company. Autopoint negotiated more time within which to sell the company's stock, parts and machinery, but was unable to do so. Autopoint defaulted in its rent payments, and the owner of Autopoint's factory was forced to evict the company. by that time) was in the process of failing just as the book was being published. Unbeknownst to Veley, the Autopoint Company (Autopoint-Janesville, Inc.
The success of Veley's book about the Autopoint Company had consequences far beyond his interests in industrial history and collecting vintage pencils. With any luck, the venture of offering it to collectors will become profitable enough to one day explore the possibility of domestic production again.īy the spring of 2022, the Legendary Lead Company had gained a significant following, and Veley's efforts as an author were being recognized his 2019 book, A Century of Autopoint, won Best Design for a non-fiction book in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. The Panda pencil stock is probably sufficient to fuel America's appetite for lead for many years to come.
You might be able to find some of the sizes Panda made - but you won't find any made in the USA. Cheap imports, combined with domestic environmental restrictions, have wiped out the American mechanical pencil lead industry in its entirety. None of these leads are made in the United States anymore. The earliest leads appear to date to the late 1920s the latest, from 1989, 036" leads, boxed in 1,000 gross cases in numerous hardnesses and colors as well as box after box of leads made in unusual sizes and compositions. That afternoon, Veley purchased everything Panda had left - standard sized. It didn't take any convincing for him to make the trip that Saturday, and it didn't take long when he arrived to see how important Panda's stock was to anyone interested in vintage mechanical pencils. With just a week left before all the company's stock would wind up in the dumpster, her internet search for people who might be interested in vintage mechanical pencil lead brought her straight to Jonathan Veley, who has written several books on the subject of mechanical pencils, was publishing a daily blog on antique pencils called The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, and who by coincidence lived in Newark, Ohio, only about two hours away. Since the building had to be cleaned out when the keys were turned over, the daughter of Panda's president began searching for someone to buy what was left. Inside were several decades' worth of unsold inventory and leftovers. Panda wasn't able to afford the required upgrades, so the company discontinued the manufacture of mechanical pencil leads, focusing instead on wood advertising pencils.īy late 2013, Panda's leadmaking machinery had been sold for scrap, and in November, the owners sold the building. As needle-thin leads became fashionable in the 1980s, imported Japanese leads with a new polymer-based composition were much cheaper to make, once the initial equipment investments were made. Panda manufactured leads from traditional blends of clay and graphite. In addition, many smaller pencil companies which offered their own brands of lead were probably also selling Panda lead. You may well have never heard of the company, because the products it made were supplied in bulk to many of America's large mechanical pencil manufacturers, including Dur-O-Lite, Autopoint, Eversharp and Eberhard Faber. Thanks to its metal body and refillable leads, it is a long-lasting, 100% Swiss Made companion.The Panda Pencil Company, located in Trenton, Ohio near Cincinnati, was one of the major manufacturers of pencil leads in the United States through the latter part of the Twentieth Century. Its hexagonal shape and ergonomic lines ensure perfect handling. Two new mechanical pencils boasting blue and turquoise metal-X finishes together with the Totally Swiss model complete the range of colours in the collection.īoth light and resistant, the 849 mechanical pencil is the ideal companion for taking daily notes and making sketches or precise technical drawings. The range of colours in the 849 mechanical pencil collection continues to grow, with the arrival of new models inspired by the legendary 849 ballpoint pen.
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