Anyway, this is Sally Squirrel: The Super-saving Sweetheart of The Squirrels Club! (TSC)
TSC was described as 'an international savings club for children' that some banks could choose to participate in. I dunno any details, but joining the club seemed to earn one a newsletter with comics, contests and so forth. TSC seems to've started sometime in the 1970s and dissolved in the late 1980s (so sad!).
As for banks that promoted TSC, I found several (though I'm sure there were many others). The bank that came up most in my research was Glendale Federal: a bank in California. Also observed was Hancock Savings and Loan, First Community Bank, Mount Prospect Bank, and South State Bank (in case anyone cares).
I don't have much to say about the pencil itself: I'm unsure who made it (my guess would be Dixon), and I'm unsure of its vintage (1980s?).
That said, it may've been better to feature this pencil with a comic (so the whole thing would be visible in the upload), but ACO is my mainstay (and as of writing, it's been nearly a month since my last ACO).
...Anyways, I'll tell the extremely uninteresting story of how I came to acquire the pencil. ^^
I was browsing eBay for newly-listed pencil lots (because that's how I spend my Friday nights). A listing came up titled, 'Vintage Lot of 100 Old Wooden Pencils ALL UNSHARPENED Advertising Midwest Kansas'
$25 + shipping (roughly $36) ...fairly cheap for the amount of pencils, so I thought to check it out.
As I scanned though the lot, I saw several curiosities:
a couple of 'Brand X' specimens (obscure, they, but nothing worth featuring) ...a Coke pencil from the 1960s (cool, but not too exciting) ...a Pizza Hut pencil with their old chef character (nice, I guess) ...a gold 'Met-O-Lite' from Empire (Empire's answer to Eberhard's 'Tinsel Tint' line ...kinda 'meh', but it's one I didn't have) ...A blue 'Roy Rogers' from Eagle (now we're talking!)
...AN EAGLE MIKADO IN A VARIATION I DIDN'T HAVE! :D
Well, the Mikado was worth the $25 by itself ...but, honestly, I'd featured two Mikados already. :( Though the value was there, the lot just wasn't turning me on (I could live without it).
Well, being the furry trash that I am, I pretty much knew that I would be buying the lot (the combination of the TSC and Mikado pencil won me over---neither pencil by itself would've sufficed). =^..^=
The last of something is always bittersweet. It marks an actual ending, a definitive point. It can be a strange thing; so many properties are timeless, set someplace at sometime, with no aging or marking of the seasons outside of holiday specials. And yet, sometimes, some things must finish. So it goes.
The last of something is always bittersweet. It marks an actual ending, a definitive point. It can b
I absolutely adore stumbling on a hitherto-unknown world of furry characters. I would have absolutely loved to be in the Squirrels Club if I'd been born in that era. The comics remind me of the ones you used to get at Big Boy restaurants.
I absolutely adore stumbling on a hitherto-unknown world of furry characters. I would have absolutel
There was one issue that stuck with me. The bad guys in the comic built a machine out of a flashlight and an olive that you could use to see other people's thoughts. It was such a bizarre, dream-logic idea that I never forgot it.
This is approximately the era I remember. https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?tid=233641&pgi=351 The
