Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.
People have always loved souvenirs, but before the 20th-century proliferation of gift shops, the method to the possession could be a tad more gruesome. At the 1793 public execution of King Louis XVI in Paris, some onlookers dabbed their handkerchiefs in his blood as keepsakes. Lynching posses in the American South frequently posed for group photos with the corpse(s), images that were in turn often sold as postcards. Amid the myriad fallout from the 1815 Battle of Waterloo that closed the Napoleonic Wars, teeth were scavenged from corpses and sold by dentists.
And during the Civil War, surviving soldiers and opportunistic battlefield tourists retrieved spent cartridges and inserted graphite sticks. Bullet pencils were the result, which improbably became an advertising staple decades later. Even churches offered bullet pencils. And they made it all the way to Alaska. Then they disappeared nearly entirely, replaced by a still ubiquitous product, the ballpoint pen.
The exact origin of pencils remains an argument without a fixed solution, although most evidence points to the 16th century. Sometime around 1564, a uniquely large deposit of natural graphite was discovered in northeast England. Graphite is the material in the middle of your pencils, the stuff that leaves the marks on paper. This deposit became the foundation of an English pencil industry, though local shepherds originally used the graphite to mark their sheep, as of course they would. Elsewhere, monks wrapped small chunks of graphite in cloth as crude writing instruments. A 1565 text by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner includes an illustration of a pencil, with a core of graphite inserted into a wooden handle.
By the way, the lead in a pencil is not actually the element lead. This ongoing misunderstanding predates pencils, when graphite was indeed considered a form of lead. In Latin, lead is plumbus, so graphite became plumbago, meaning black lead. “Graphite” did not exist as a term until it was coined in the 1780s, a decade after the material was finally identified as a distinct form of carbon.
For more than two centuries, all pencils were made with carved, raw graphite. Parallel breakthroughs in the late 18th century enabled nations without access to high-quality graphite — countries other than England — to produce the highly desired pencils. Put simply, powdered graphite was mixed with clay and molded into narrow rods, which were then placed between two slats of wood that were glued together. More or less, this was the arrival of the modern pencil. American companies were producing familiar hexagon-shaped pencils by the early 1840s, and Hymen Lipman patented a design for an attached eraser in 1858.
Those Civil War battlefield relic bullet pencils were rough, individual efforts. Yet, they combined the pursuit of souvenirs with a desire for a durable pencil, in an era with limited, messier, and more cumbersome alternatives. The most common writing implements at the time were quill, dip and fountain pens. The American company Joseph Dixon Crucible Company had been producing pencils since the late 1820s, but technological improvements immediately after the war allowed them to mass produce pencils at a heretofore unheard-of scale. Pencils became both cheaper and more popular. By the 1870s, Americans were purchasing an estimated 20 million pencils a year.
Once relatively expensive items employed to exhaustion, pencils became a familiar, even expected presence. A report from this pencil boom lamented, “only three quarters of each pencil is really used, and the remainder … thrown away.” Curse this unappreciative new generation and so forth.
Through this period, bullet pencils remained an obscure example of trench art until Britain colonized modern-day Sudan. On Jan. 26, 1885, Maj. Gen. Charles Gordon died at Khartoum after an 11-month siege, and only two days before British relief forces arrived. Back in England, Gordon was a beloved war hero, put forward as an ideal noble soldier. Before the 1898 Battle of Omdurman, general orders included the declaration, “Remember Gordon.”
A London jeweler, Mappin Brothers, had empty bullet cases from Omdurman collected and shipped back to England. There, they were transformed into mechanical pencils, with either screw or ratchet features extending the lead within. The result was called a Khartoum Pencil, or sometimes a Gordon Pencil for the “Remember Gordon” engraving along the side. Per an 1899 advertisement, the jeweler possessed the “exclusive sale of the Pencils, and have arranged to devote 10 per cent of the value to the Funds of the Gordon Memorial College at Khartoum,” what is now the University of Khartoum. More expensive editions featured silver, gold or platinum detailing.
In late 1914, in the early months of the First World War, the British government issued a comfort package to every one of its soldiers. As Christmas presents from Her Royal Highness, the Princess Mary, they were known as Princess Mary gifts. The package included a picture of the princess, as well as pipe tobacco and cigarettes. And there was a bullet pencil, fashioned from a spent .303 cartridge.
The Princess Mary bullet pencil was a simpler instrument compared to the Khartoum Pencils from over a decade prior. There was no mechanism. Instead, a short pencil with a metal cap at the dull end was inserted into the case, thus appearing like an unspent bullet. When in need, the pencil was removed, flipped, and reinserted into the empty cartridge, forming a full-sized writing implement. These monogrammed examples established the enduring, basic design for bullet pencils.
With examples on hand, many World War I soldiers fashioned their own bullet pencils in the quiet moments of life in the trenches. Those memories lingered, and when the war ended, factories in England and the United States began mass producing bullet pencils, though no longer employing actual bullet cases.
But this new generation of bullet pencils was not merely a pencil. They were an opportunity. Blank bullet pencils from after World War I are rare. Instead, they became an advertising tool. Everyone needed writing instruments, and before the introduction of ballpoint pens, nothing was more reliable than a pencil. And the most durable pencil was cased in metal, a bullet pencil. Any company with its name emblazoned along the side of the pencils could bask in the positive association. From “The Write Stuff,” a collector’s guide to pens published in 2000, “Bullet pencils are almost always advertising pieces, given away as promotions.”
Nearly every business worth its own existence had branded bullet pencils. Car dealership or grocery store. Bookstore or bank. Restaurants or insurance offices. Sports teams or food brands. Bullet pencils were about the most inexpensive, effective way to advertise. Nobody threw away a bullet pencil; they were too useful. In addition, they could be carried safely, without stabbing yourself or breaking the lead. Pocket-friendly, they were popular with golfers, even beyond their general appeal.
Bullet pencils were a universal constant at tractor dealers, seed shops and feed stores. From the 1998 “Farm Tractors Collectibles” guidebook, “Every dealer offered bullet pencils or pens for giveaways. It was the cheapest way to get the company’s name in front of potential customers. After all, every farmer carried a pen in his bib overalls.”
There were patriotic mechanical pencils awarded for war bond purchases during World War II and school-branded bullet pencils as rewards for good students. Political candidates handed them out. Some churches even offered bullet pencils wrapped in Bible Scripture. In 1944, the Church of God Evangel magazine offered, “We have 300,000 bullet pencils with assorted scripture texts … While they last we will ship to churches at $52.50 for 1,000; $27.50 for 500; $14.00 for 250, which is the smallest number offered. They retail at 10c each.” Ten cents in 1944 is close to $2 in 2025 money, after accounting for inflation.
Finally, there were the gift shops. For a time, if a destination mattered, there it was on a bullet pencil. From towns to states, national parks to manmade meccas, there were bullet pencils. They were simple reminders of vacations and other travels. “Souvenir of Paxton, Illinois.” “Souvenir of The Black Hills.”
Like all fads, bullet pencils eventually traveled north. Alaska was a late addition to the world of bullet pencils. While there had been tourists since the days of the colonial explorers, tourism was slower to develop as a major industry, this far from the Lower 48 population centers, nearer the end of some ragged logistical chains. The end of World War II travel restrictions, the opening of the Alaska Highway, and the advent of affordable, reliable airlines made late 1940s Alaska a more widely viable destination.
And by that time at the latest, bullet pencils were in Alaska. Examples from this era are straightforward to say the least. They are blunt, simple devices for advertising, cheap memories available by the dozen. The Alaska versions in my possession are almost generic, clearly designed by individuals with, at best, a clichéd understanding of this territory. Totem poles and dog teams, what else did people know — or think they knew — about Alaska? That, plus the literal word “Alaska” made for a staple of early midcentury gift shops.
The totem poles are not authentic; the dog team is a caricature. Instead, they reflect a limited understanding of Alaska. There were plenty of Outside folk who knew that totem poles existed but not any accurate details of their construction, meaning, or even geographical location. At its best, this type of imagery is a form of keyword association. Say Alaska out loud to a tourist or other non-resident, and what do they think of? Totem poles and dog teams indeed. Maybe they also consider gold rushes, glaciers, polar bears, moose and the pipeline.
It could always be worse. Pennants have their own cultural history, with rises, falls, and dalliances as souvenir staples. One perhaps from the 1960s illustrates the depths of uninformed design. It proclaims “East Anchorage Alaska,” from a time when the phrase was barely used except to describe the high school that opened in 1961. And what is in Anchorage, the creators thought to themselves? Why, igloos and totem poles, of course. A note, the local Indigenous people, the Dena’ina, did not build totem poles.
By the 1940s at the latest, the basic bullet pencil design had evolved to include erasers, as seen with the Alaska examples. This detail only furthered their popularity. Most referees and umpires carried one at work. Bullet pencils were all over, inescapable. Everyone knew about them, even took them for granted. Then they disappeared, replaced by a new generation, the young always taking down the old.
Ballpoint pens have their own dynamic history, but their entry into the American public consciousness began shortly after World War II, at a New York department store. On Oct. 29, 1945, Gimbels debuted the Reynolds Rocket, the first commercially successful ballpoint pen in the U.S. market. As the newest technology, these pens weren’t cheap, not at $12.50 ($225 in 2025 money) apiece. However, Gimbels sold 30,000 pens in the first week. More affordable versions soon followed, and by the 1960s, ballpoint pens were universal in a way that surpassed even pencils. Ballpoints could be and were used anywhere, in all conditions, and far from the need of a proper desk or other writing surface.
As if overnight, bullet pencils disappeared. The basic pencil remained, though without much appreciation. In his 1989 history text, “The Pencil,” Henry Petroski noted, “As late as the 1940s all pencils were objects of value, even if they cost as little as a penny.” Thereafter, they became something that could be tossed aside without care, since more reliable ballpoint pens were everywhere. After all, a pen was designed for long-term use without much in the way of visual degradation. A pencil, however, was made for oblivion. Obliteration was the understood result of continued use.
In his 2006 memoir of life on an Iowa farm, Jay N. Musfeldt wrote, “It’s amazing how a word, phrase, or object which is so commonly mentioned and understood in one decade can sound so oddly old-fashioned to the same ears only a seeming few years later. Here are a few more items from the old ‘I haven’t thought of those in years’ file. Bullet pencils. Store string. Summer kitchens. Section cars. Gypsy wagons. Milk pails. Window weights.”
Today, bullet pencils are a forgotten cultural oddity, bridging a unique cultural gap, from battlefields to advertising budgets. This article originated from my own confusion when I came across an Alaska bullet pencil. Indeed, many of the things you now own and cherish, some of the things you use on the daily, a generation or more from now will not be recognized. A person, as yet unborn, will look at them and wonder, “What did that do?”
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Key sources:
Beggy, Carol. Pencil. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024.
Dowling, Stephen. “The Cheap Pen That Changed Writing Forever.” BBC, October 29, 2020.
Jaegers, Ray, and Bevy Jaegers. The Write Stuff: Collector’s Guide to Inkwells, Fountain Pens, and Desk Accessories. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2000.
Klancher, Lee, editor. Farm Tractor Collectibles. Osceola, WI: MBI Publishing Company, 1998.
Mappin Brothers advertisement. Illustrated London News. December 2, 1899, 803.
Musfeldt, Jay N. Echoes: Reflections of a Hometown Heritage. Leander, TX: Self-published, 2006.
“A Novelty.” (Cardiff, Wales) Western Mail. September 4, 1899, 4
Petroski, Henry. The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1989.
Saunders, Nicholas J. Trench Art: A Brief History and Guide, 1914-1939. Barnsley, United Kingdom: Leo Cooper, 2001.