NOT ALL PENCILS ARE ALIKE. NOR ARE ALL ADVERTISING MEDIA

A brilliant midcentury promotional piece from a San Francisco advertising agency. Cleverly using different types of pencils with distinct printed slogans, this conceptually designed ad amplifies the impact of targeted messaging. The designer went on to become a legend in his field.

Produced by Carl E. Rosenfeld for the Walter W. Cribbins Company, Advertising Agency, 619 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, 1961. Distinctive and interactive advertising promotional display, white stiff card with black printing, folded accordion style into 13 panels, 5 panels are printed black with cutout slots each holding a customized pencil with a catchphrase, 8 panels carry messages about the pencils printed in various midcentury fonts. The composition folds out to 9" x 18" and superbly telescopes down to 9" x 1.5" allowing it to fit into its cardboard mailing tube measuring 10" x 2". VERY GOOD CONDITION: complete as issued, the advertisement has some areas of offsetting from the pencils and a touch of edgewear otherwise tight, bright, clean and unmarked. The mailing tube has some scratches/scrapes to the black paper covering otherwise very good. I could not find another example of this advertising campaign anywhere, a truly unique piece of advertising ephemera.

The Walter W. Cribbins Co. was founded in 1915 in San Francisco by Walter Wallace Cribbins (1887-1954). A business relationship was forged between Cribbins and Carl Ernst Rosenfeld (1908-1998) a graphic designer and adman who purchased the agency, turning it into a premier advertising products firm. Rosenfeld was an industry leader and celebrity with an advertising prize named after him.