VINTAGE 1960S AUTOMATIC PENCIL SHARPENER CO (APSCO) USA PENCIL SHARPENER

VINTAGE 1960'S AUTOMATIC PENCIL SHARPENER CO (APSCO) SINGLE SIZE PENCIL SHARPENER. WITH A TYPE III-A CUTTER ASSEMBLY TO FIT 6 PENCIL SIZES. IN NICE WORKING CONDITION.CAN MOUNT TO DESK OR WALL.
 
For many of us, the sight of an old desk-mounted, mechanical pencil sharpener brings back some sensory-charged childhood memoriesthe thrilling turn of the crank, the low roar of rotating metal, the confusingly alluring scent of fresh cedar shavings.
 
Until the early 20th century, the most common method of sharpening pencils was whittling with a pen knife. Small handheld pencil sharpeners were popular beginning in the mid-19th century. Between the 1880s and 1910s, numerous inventors and companies took up the challenge of supplying offices, schools, draftsmen, artists, and eventually homes with efficient machines to sharpen lead pencils. This work commenced in earnest shortly after mass production of wood-cased lead pencils with round leads began in the late 1870s. While a handful of mechanical pencil sharpeners were patented in the U.S. between 1860 and 1880, scores of machines were introduced between 1884 and 1915.
 
Commercially successful mechanical sharpeners embodied a wide variety of approaches to the central problems involved in sharpening a pencil, namely, to remove wood from the point and sharpen the lead, and either to rotate the pencil or to rotate the cutter around the pencil, all without breaking the lead.
 
While they are not as common as they once were, mechanical pencil sharpeners can still be found in some schools, offices, and homes. Some people prefer the traditional feel of using a hand-cranked pencil sharpener, and some find them more reliable than electric pencil sharpeners.
 
MARKINGS: APSCO PRODUCS USA
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA
 
For most of its existence, the Automatic Pencil Sharpener Company was owned and operated by the Spengler-Loomis MFG Co. of Chicago, but there was a bit of an awkward courtship period beforehand. In its earliest incarnation, in fact, around 1905, APSCOs home office was located in New York City, on Broadway, no less. Here, it promoted its first marquee product, the a hand-cranked, fearsome-looking beast with three rotating blades. The Spengler-Loomis MFG Company wouldnt officially buy out APSCO and move it to Chicago until 1911.
The state-of-the-art Rockford factory, completed in 1914 and located at 2415 Kishwaukee Street, covered 26,000 square feet, with upwards of 150 employees soon working to produce half a million pencil sharpeners per year. Its here where our jolly green Giant sharpener was bornoriginally designed as merely a bigger version of the flagship Chicago model.
The Automatic Pencil Sharpener Company would remain an industrial pillar in Rockford for another 60 years, surviving the Depression, another world war, and the demise of the Spengler-Loomis MFG Co. some time in the 1950s. It would carry on under the ownership of Maple Industries in the 1960s and Berol Corp. (formerly the Eagle Pencil Co.) in the 70s and 80s.
APSCO Products, Inc., as it came to be known, was never able to compete in the electric pencil sharpener game quite the same way it had in the old mechanical days. The company that had defined a specific style of universally appreciated tool was now seemingly obsoleteeven if many school systems hadnt gotten the memo.
 
SIZE: 12CM DEEP 7CM WIDE 10CM HIGH
 
CONDITION: IN GOOD WORKING CONDITION
 
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