Bulletin 1278 No.2

About Reliance Pencil Co.

Reliance Pencil Co. was originally based in Mount Vernon, New York, and the company is believed to have been established in the early 1930s. Its founder and president, Maurice Levine, died in 1952. Around this time the company is thought to have opened facilities in Lewisburg, Tennessee, and changed its name to Reliance Pen and Pencil Corp. Not much else is known about Reliance, however, a 1972 lawsuit claimed the paint used on the company's pencils contained dangerously high levels of toxic lead. Venus was also named in the suit.