An issue of Business Screen magazine from 1939 made mention of a short film called Two Cents Worth Of Difference. It’s a 38-minute “sound film” made by the Eberhard Faber Company for training and advertising purposes. Caravan Productions, who made the film, describes the scene:
“A newspaper clipping informs us that Eberhard Faber has completed 61 years as head of the oldest pencil factory in America. Mr Faber tells what constitutes successful sales technique.
“Then the film proper follows this intro. Salesmen who have not been doing so well in selling office supplies are summoned to a meeting and here an Eberhard Faber pencil company man is introduced to them. He gives a lengthy demonstration of the superiority of the Mongol pencil and gives these salesmen the idea that if they are able to sell pencils the rest of their business will pick up also. We follow one salesman to an office and observe his methods.”
The magazine made special note of 83-year-old Eberhard Faber’s cameo, though he is mistakenly identified as the company’s founder:
I’d like to think that this film has been digitized and is quietly waiting to be discovered in some archive. More and more service- and training-films like this have been uploaded to YouTube so perhaps this one will find its way too.
