A tiny smidgen of success?Well just a few weeks ago I posted my little article Failure, not finding out much about government pencils. No sooner had I posted it than a local auction of pencils came up, and I won. So now I have 9 vintage NZ Govt pencils.
The box is for Wolff’s Chinagraph Pencils and is thus unrelated to the pencils therein. There are three different ranges of pencil in the box. All are unsharpened untipped woodcase pencils.
First is a round pencil, marked “VENUS copying, Venus pencil co limited, Made in England, No 200 Green” and on the other side “New Zealand Government”. It has a crazing pattern all over the green lacquer coating. I’m not totally sure, but I think this crazing is intentional, meaning it was painted that way for effect.
Second is a yellow hexagonal pencil, marked “Made in England, J Chambers, Sterling, 486, 3B” and on the other side “New Zealand Government”. It has a very large diameter lead core, about 3mm or 1/8th inch. 
Third is a set of 7 blue hexagonal pencils, marked “EAGLE, ‘Chemi*Sealed’ Turquoise Drawing’ and their lead hardness, which on my seven is 6H, 2H, H (2 of), HB, B and 3B. On the opposite side they have “New Zealand Government”, and most also have “Made in England”. I assume that these were some sort of drawing or draughting set. 
I’m sure government pencils ceased many decades ago, but I imagine they never actually sold any pencils, so technically I may well be in receipt of stolen property? If this blog suddenly goes off line then you’ll know why - those illegal pencil dealers dobbed me in to the G-Man.
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8 comments:
I can help you with the Venus pencil - yes the paint effect is original. In fact in the UK these pencils were sold with a small white plastic top on the end. As far as I can remember they were premium (expensive) pencils. Have not seen any lately, but used them when I was at school - 35 years ago!!
Nice find!
Hello Anonymous - thanks for the info about the Venus pencil.
Forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know about your Venus, but I believe "copy" pencils have the unique property that once you have laid down a line (or signature) on paper, if you slightly dampen another sheet with a light wash of water and press it down on your original, the graphite is treated in such a way that it transfers to the new sheet effectively making you a carbon copy of the generating document.
Nothing to forgive whether I already knew it or not. Thanks for the information, and no I did not know this.
Hey, actually I think I've got some vintage mechanical pencil "copy" leads. have to check it out.
I used to have several similar pencils, with the insigna of the Israeli Defence Forces.
I should look for them. One of them might have survived.
I have a Venus Gold Filled mechanical pencil that belonged to my father. VENUS is engraved close to the {clip end} is also engraved, "Ever Pointed" "American Pencil Co" "New York". Can anyone tell me the time period this was manufactured and approx. value? Thanks
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