Pencil Sharpener

Toumanian was a collector and a lover of unique, interesting things; this becomes clear when we get acquainted with poet's belongings in his museum. The museum is full of different items, the geography of which extends from the Far East to the west coast of America.

Toumanian's automatic pencil sharpener is of particular interest in the museum collection. It is unknown when and where he bought or received the item as a present.

According to Andrew Kleiman ("Made in Chicago Museum''), Toumanian's pencil sharpener dates back to 1910-1914, before World War I, and is one of the U. S. Automatic series sharpeners sold in Europe at that time. It has an interesting way of usage. The sharpener’s disk rotates thanks to its handle, and the knife sharpens the pencil in the hole.

The formed particles are poured into a box at the bottom of the device. The handle is made of white polished metal, the head of which is made of wood – "pear-shaped". It has a hole for injecting oil to ensure the smooth operation of the device. The sharpener is lacquered. Manufactured by the ''Automatic Pencil Sharpener Company'' (APSCO), founded in 1905 in the United States. In the same year, the company released its first brand – U. S. Automatic Pencil Sharpener. It was a hand-operated tool with three rotating blades, patented in 1908. U.S. Automatic pencil Sharpener designed and patented by Chicago inventor Essington N. Gilfilan (1906), it became a big-selling, lucrative commodity for its New York investors – Charles Spengler and Edwin Lumis. Lumis was APSCO's West Coast sales manager, and Spengler was a talented mechanical engineer who patented a number of innovative designs. It was he who embarked on the U.S. Automatic sharpeners designing and production, perfecting the original created by Gilfilan. In 1910, Lumis and Spengler started their own business in Chicago. A year later, they managed to turn all this into a profitable business, producing more than half a million pencil sharpeners a year. In a very short time, these sharpeners took a dominant position in the market, successfully starting to be sold in Europe as "American pencil sharpeners''.

At the time when people were sharpening their pencils with a knife, this invention was an indescribable phenomenon in the world. Thus, APSCO became the largest pencil sharpener manufacturer and seller in the world, dominating the market for decades.

The company overcame many trials, from illegal patent theft to World Wars and the Great Crisis, reaching to the 1980s. However, APSCO has not been as competitive in the electric pencil sharpener game as it has been in the past with mechanical sharpeners. The company, which had established the unique style of sharpeners that were so highly regarded by everyone, clearly fell behind and ceased to exist.

Toumanian's pencil sharpener has the following dimensions: height - 12.5 cm, diameter of the sharpening disk - 7.3 cm, box - 5.5x7x4.3 cm.

The registration number: TTGG88/WB212

It was presented to the museum by poet’s wife in 1952.

Article by Vardanoush Nalbandyan 

Translated by Anahit Sringyan