Pencil Exchange
Pencil Exchange sounds like a venue for trading pencils, but actually it was a pencil manufacturer —
It seems to have been a precursor to, or early alternate name for, the General Pencil Company, judging from the matching brand names and numbers.
Fred's Pencils 
Speaking of which, why is there no pencil exchange? That could be a fun way to get rid of duplicates and diversify our collections!
October 13, 2012 at 12:36 pm
There is an informal group on FB. If you want the info, just message me here.
October 13, 2012 at 6:45 pm
I would be interested in the FB group.
October 15, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Interesting information anyway…
October 14, 2012 at 12:51 am
not anonymos
October 14, 2012 at 12:52 am
From what I can tell, the Pencil Exchange was started 1889 in New Jersey by Oscar Weissenborn, son of Edward Weissenborn, the founder of the American Pencil Company. It became the General Pencil Co. in 1923, still owned by Oscar who was later joined in business by his sons.
I am compiling a sort of “Pencil Timeline” with important dates in the history of pencils. I would be happy to share it if you are interested.
Steve
October 15, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Interesting historical information, new to me.
October 17, 2012 at 4:21 pm
oh, and ditto on the pencil exchange idea above!
October 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Does anyone have any idea what the X with the four dots in it symbolizes? (see pencils 2, 4, 5, 7, 8). I have seen in on several different pencil brands.
October 15, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Although the “dotted X” (as I call it) probably has some meaning in another context, I think that for pencils, it is just a traditional decorative separator. It appears on modern and antique pencils from many different companies (and countries). I may make a post showing that.
October 15, 2012 at 11:14 pm
The dotted x is one of several typographical symbols in the category of ‘reference marks’. While not in common usage today, it has been defined in the UNICODE character set. If your computer is using a font containing it, it will appear here: “※” It was probably used much like we would use an asterisk today.
October 20, 2013 at 6:11 pm
Excellent information, Doug!
By the way, I’m still around. Just too busy to publish lately.
October 26, 2013 at 11:07 pm