Joliet woman’s pencil collection part of Guinness World Book of Records

Sarah Randolph of Joliet is thrilled that part of her mother’s pencil collection is now part of the Guinness World Book of Records.

In December, Randolph learned that Aaron Bartholmey of Colfax, Iowa, made the Guinness World Book of Records for the largest pencil collection in the world: 69,255 with no duplicates.

In June 2018, Randolph had sold a large box of pencils and two smaller boxes of pencils to Bartholmey, she said. Randolph said 167 of her mother’s pencils made it into the world record count.

Bartholmey still has about 30 of Bush’s pencils that he has not yet catalogued, Randolph said.

The late Anna Fay Herron Bush, Randolph’s mother and a former teacher, had more than 100 hobby collections, Randolph said.

This included pencils and pens that Herron Bush had saved and collected from her family and from traveling around the world, Randolph said.

Randolph said her mother often incorporated her collections into her teaching.

So selling her pencils to Bartholmey, who said he loves history, keeps that legacy going, Randolph said.

In the ‘50s, they came out with all kinds of advertising gimmicks for business pencils so they would stand out. These were short pencils with plastic tubes that people filled with aspirin and even coffee grounds.”

—   Aaron Bartholmey of Colfax, Iowa, holder of the Guinness World Book of Records for the largest pencil collection in the world

“She always wanted to bring the goodness out in all her students and all the people she met,” Randolph said. “She wanted to build up and encourage them.”

Bartholmey said getting into the Guinness World Book of Records was harder than he realized. The previous record was 24,000, so Colfax said he “could easily crush that” simply by sending his database that lists all his pencils.

“Being naïve, I thought it would be really easy,” Bartholmey said. “I learned it was much harder than that.”

Bartholmey said he had to hold a public counting event, which he did at a local historical society July 1. Two experts in pencil collecting each counted the entire collection, he said.

Why pencils

Bartholmey said his first-grade teacher gave her students a few pencils for Christmas, and he was hooked. Whenever Bartholmey attended flea markets with his grandfather, he found boxes of pencils for a quarter, so he’d “pick up a few with my allowance,” he said.

His collection reflects his love for history, with many pencils sorted by city and state.

What’s in Bartholmey’s collection?

Bartholmey’s pencil collection includes the all-too-familiar No. 2 pencils, oversized pencils, pencils that commemorated events and antique pencils advertising long-forgotten businesses in small towns and a pencil from the U.S. sesquicentennial in 1926, he said.

An early 1900s pencil “advocates for better gravel roads up in New England somewhere,” Bartholmey said. “That’s a fun, quirky one you don’t see too often.”

Bartholmey has pencils from World War II that showcase the “extreme patriotism backing the war effort” and pencils containing aspirin.

“In the ‘50s, they came out with all kinds of advertising gimmicks for business pencils so they would stand out,” he said. “These were short pencils with plastic tubes that people filled with aspirin and even coffee grounds.”

Bartholmey even has “four or five” pencils supposedly filled with small amounts of actual uranium, too, he said. Bartholmey would love to own a pencil from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which he said has Christopher Columbus’ head on top.

Acquiring and storing the collection

Bartholmey said half of his pencils are in metal card catalogue cabinets in his garage, and the rest are in his basement in assorted boxes and containers.

He still acquires pencils from flea markets and from the family of pencil collectors who have died, with the family sharing stories of how much their loved one valued the collection.

Anyone interested in collecting pencils should attend the American Pencil Collectors Society’s conventions, as Bartholmey does with his wife, Allison Bartholmey.

“It’s a good way to grow your collection but also to learn about the collection and learn what’s out there,” Bartholmey said, “and meet some really fun people along the way.”