Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Yes, but what's that pencil he's holding?

Chuck Jordan  (a famous designer who worked at General Motors, apparently) - died recently, and many obituaries featured this picture

(click the picture to enlarge)

Great designer, General Motors, passing of  an age, shall not see his like again, yes, yes, yes...  
But what do you reckon it is?  a  Mirado Black Warrior?
It's got a great a point on it - so I am guessing it's his own, not a prop :-)

5 comments:

Adair said...

This is maddening. I cannot enlarge the pencil enough to see the writing on the barrel. It cannot be a Black Warrior---that brand did not exist in the 1960's, I do not think. But it does have a very similar red ferrule, I admit. Did the Black Velvet already exist? Other candidates might be the Richard Best Royal Scot, but the band on the ferrule of those pencils was more pinkish than red. Blaisdell Calculator? IBM? I've gone through the images on Brand Name pencils and nothing seems to match perfectly. It is a great photo, though, isn't it? Such a wonderful era in terms of style and design...

Anonymous said...

if you google you may find a higher-resolution copy of the photo - but that was the biggest I could find in the 2 mins I spent. The text is tantalisingly visible... but not legible !

adair said...

I stand corrected: there was indeed an earlier version of the Black Warrior (the Black Warrior 372) that was put out by the Eagle pencil company and then taken over much later by Sanford. You can find photos of these on the Brand Name pencils site. It has black barrel and the red band on the ferrule. This could be the pencil in the photo---but of course I cannot prove it. Another candidate might be another Eagle pencil---the Electronic Scorer 350, also black-barreled with a red band on the ferrule.

Eric said...

I'm sure it's an American pencil

John M. said...

That is one of the cleanest old school pics I have seen in a while. I'm surprised we can't read the writing on the barrel.