BNP Blog
CART(0)
Login
Menu
CART(0)
Login
Menu
Brand: Richard Best Pencil Co.
Made in: USA
TOMORROW’S PENCIL: This factory sharpened Richard Best Try-Rex Futura No.2 comes with a free holographic sticker while supplies last! Update: I purchased some more of the Futura No.2's and they have the triangle logo facing up just like the middle model in the gallery picture. They will come with a holographic sticker!! NOTE: These pencils are sold sharpened and unsharpened. These appear to be slightly different sizes so perhaps they were unsharpened and somebody sharpened them all. For that I have simply discounted them $5 to make for some happy users!
In the gallery photo, the top red ferrule is an older hex shape, while the other two are the triangular shape. The hex-shaped Futura Soft 2 was featured in this neat old advertisement printed in the April 1952 issue of the Rotarian magazine. The ad claims the pencil will save you money because of its “special lubricated lead.” Fascinating!
Special price for a special pencil! Original price was: $20.00.$15.00Current price is: $15.00.
In stock
Richard Best Pencil Company, Inc. was a family-run business founded in New York City in 1890 and moved to Irvington, NJ in 1907. Curiously, a 1909 U.S. Congressional record detailing a Senate hearing on the topic of taxing pencil lead refers to the company as “Richard Best Pencil Works.” The company's founder and president, Richard Best, submitted at least two letters to the Ways and Means committee where he argued against increasing tariffs on imported lead because it would ultimately hurt the American pencil manufacturing industry (even though the company did not import its lead). Mr. Best died in 1934.
In 1941 the company was granted a trademark for the name "TRYREX," however I do not know when the triangular shape itself was patented. Advertisements for the company in the early 1950s show its headquarters as being in Springfield, New Jersey. Sometime later, Richard Best Pencil Co., along with its patented and iconic Try-Rex pencil shape, was acquired by Lewisburg, Tennessee-based J.R. Moon Pencil Co.
