For sale is an early 1900s CRAYOLA CRAYONS No 8 PACK made by Binney & Smith Company, NY. The crayon box itself is worn but all of the graphics are clearly visible. This vintage package of crayons includes eight different crayons inside the package. Overall the box and crayons are in excellent condition. The front of the package includes the company logo and the following text: No 8 – Crayola Trade Mark – Gold Medal – Eight Colors – School Crayons – For Educational Color Work – Manufactured by Binney & Smith Co., New York – U.S.A.” The back of the package includes the slogan “an artist’s crayon at scholar’s price”. This crayon box was made sometime between 1903 and the 1920s. The package measures about 4 inches by 2 3/4 inches. A great vintage item for display and would pair well with a vintage child’s school desk.
In 1864, Joseph W. Binney founded the Peekskill Chemical Works for the grinding, packaging, and distribution of ground charcoal and lamp black. In 1880, he set up headquarters in New York City and was joined by his son Edwin Binney and his nephew C. Harold Smith. They were responsible for products in the black and red color ranges, such as lamp black, charcoal, and a red iron oxide paint often used to coat the barns in rural America. When Joseph retired in 1885, Edwin Binney and Harold Smith formed the partnership of Binney & Smith. Meanwhile, a new and valuable black pigment had been developed from natural gas deposits discovered during the oil rush in Pennsylvania. This pigment was more intensely black and stronger than any other pigment in use at the time; it soon became the main ingredient in printing ink, stove and shoe polish, marking inks, and black crayons. In 1902, Binney & Smith (B&S) was incorporated. In 1903, B&S produced its first box of eight Crayola crayons (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black); the box sold for a nickel. Edwin Binney’s wife, a former schoolteacher, coined the name Crayola from craie (the French word for chalk or stick of color) and ola (from oleaginous, a word referring to the oily characteristic of liquid petroleum before it is distilled into the paraffin used for crayons).
