For those of us with school age children, one of the more dreaded back-to-school tasks has to be sharpening the vast quantities of #2 pencils on the school supply list. A modern electric pencil sharpener is noisy, unreliable, and expensive, and a notebook-sized hand sharpener will drive you mad after the first pencil.
Behold! The affordable and reliable vintage alternative: an old-school, wall-mounted, hand-crank pencil sharpener.
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| Boston Sharpener from EVT Seller HappilyEraAfter |
I grew up with one of these in our laundry room, and when I visited my grandmother, I discovered she had her own mounted on a post halfway up the basement stairs. A few years later, as my mother was closing out Grandma's house, I gathered up the sharpener, shavings and all, and put it in a Ziploc to take home. I couldn't bear to leave it behind. When our daughter was heading off to kindergarten, I finally put grandma's sharpener up in our laundry room. (I should add: I had to empty out 50 years of shavings I had carted around through 4 moves across the country.) Now our daughter can sharpen her own pencils. I'm happy to be spared the hassle of grinding down 40 yellow Ticonderogas.
EVT members have a selection of pencil sharpeners for your back-to-school needs. Here are a few other fun examples. The see-through body and angles make this one perfect for a machine-age office:
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| Futuramic Sharpener from EVT Seller Dentwood |
The orange color of this Boston brand sharpener is perfect for a mid-century home:
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| Orange Bostonette Sharpener from EVT Seller VintageGypsies |
And this Apsco has a sizing wheel to sharpen different size pencils:
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| Apsco Sharpener from EVT Seller wretchedshekels |
Additional EVT Seller's sharpeners can be found here: EVT Sharpeners.
Add a practical new vintage item to your home this fall! You'll find pricing on vintage sharpeners is often less than a new electric model, and you get a higher quality product when you buy vintage. Just make sure to to take it with you if you move. One of my college friends bemoaned the loss of her family sharpener; she accidentally left it mounted in the pantry of her old home.
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