Pencil Sharpeners In Disguise As Antique Miniatures

As a kid, there was a land of wonders on our way home from school.  This Shan-gri-la was called "Elmwood Cleaners".  Not only was Emily the local Avon lady and dry cleaner magnate, her shop was filled with all kinds of knick knacks and toys.  It's where we could spend our pocket money on mini Rubik's Cubes and Wacky Wall-walkers.

When Mother's Day rolled around, there were some crappy gifts that even a kid could afford.  Among the "classiest" were these antique finished miniatures.  Not only were they models of gadgets of yesteryear, but they doubled as pencil sharpeners.  Um... handy, I guess.

I can't place when these are from, but from the typography on the boxes, I'd guess that they're from about  the 60's, but I still see these in gift shops from time to time today  They're made of cheap pig iron, and so don't survive falls very well.  I remember that each one featured at least one moving feature - the clock clicks as you move the hands around, the camera's bellows open up (conveniently dumping out the shrapnel from the sharpener), etc.

Check out the antique projector to the right of a model of a more modern super 8 model.  Somewhere there were pencil sharpener craftsmen keeping up with the tech of the day.  Might there be a Betamax pencil sharpener out there (emptying the pencil shavings by ejecting the tape of course...)?

On some mother's day, I'm sure that my own mother stifled a grimace when her well-meaning son gave her an antique-finished model of a plow.  A plow that sharpens pencils, I still remind her...

Comments

[Howard]

Over here in the UK these marvelous miniatures seem quite common. The best place to find them is probably in museum gift-shops. My favourite? - a working siege catapult - albeit about 2-inches long.

[beto]

I used to have some of these too when I was a kid, notably an Underwood-style typewriter -which is still around somewhere home- and a replica of the U.S. Independence Bell. But the one I really wanted to have (and never got) was that of a horn-style phonograph, where the record even featured a true concentric groove. AFAIK, the ones I knew were assembled in Spain.

[Michael Damian Thomas]

Well that made me smile. My grandfather still has on his desk the sharpener that I gave to him for Christmas 1980. It is an antique globe/pencil sharpener. The maps are a teensy bit inaccurate.

[fireball87]

My mom has about a half dozen of those in a glass cabinet, I'm pretty sure she got them fairly recently though.

[Tuffy]

Oh Jesus. I was obsessed with these things for a few years, starting around age 10. My rule was that they could only be acquired during trips, as if that made them somehow more special or more legitimate as collectibles. I eventually amassed a couple dozen.

The phonograph was one of the coolest ones, since the record would actually move when you turned the crank.

[Ronin]

My father got me started collecting led soldiers as a kid. After their divorce my mom was always trying to somehow involve herself in the hobby. And so she found pencil sharpener artillery. I've five of these cheesy little antiqued field gun pencil sharpeners which I must, to keep the peace keep with my soldiers :-)