I was looking for pencil cases in Target the other day so I can carry my sketching supplies in my purse.
Trapper Keepers: Didn’t have anything so elaborate as that but I did have the folders with Ratt and Motley Crue (circa '86). They 'bout gave Grandma an apoplexy, but I sure made friends in a hurry!
I never had a Trapper Keeper because I didn’t like them. I had a Five-Star (Mead I guess) binder. Some years had the smaller velcro-closure and some were huge with a zipper closure. I always ended up decorating it in some fashion, stickers, pens, white-out etc writing all over it. Definitely stickers on the inside. I don’t remember ever having a pencil case but I might have had a pencil pouch in my binder that you could put in the rings up front.
But in junior high we had to move classes every hour but were not allowed bookbags so I learned to hate binders (too big to carry around) and became a notebook-only kind of girl. It stuck and I HATED having to have a binder for science classes in high school, but they were mandatory.
Born in '83, and I used pencil cases of various kinds all the way up through the end of my B.A. How the hell else do you keep all your pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters handy? In grade school, I mostly used hard-sided boxes (plastic, IIRC); high school onward, I used soft-sided zippered cases that would be more space-efficient for carting around in a backpack all day versus having a space where they’d sit in my desk.
My parents wouldn’t ever spring for a Trapper Keeper. I was horribly scarred for life. I did have the occasional Lisa Frank folder, though.
I had one of those slide-rule pencil boxes too. And I also skipped a grade. If only the manufacturers knew just how powerful those little boxes were.
I don’t remember ever having a pencil case, but I wanted one. We really had no need for one though, as we had all day in the same room with the same desk. I had school pencils and home pencils. I really coveted those “cigar box” type boxes with designs on them, but I never had one of those either.
I remember begging and begging for my Trapper Keeper, it was a whole six or eight dollars, so it was a big deal compared to other binders. The one I finally got was dark green and had a photo of horses on it.
So, what, all of your writing implements etc. were just scattered inside your desk? All the pens, pencils, erasers, markers, your compass, protractor, etc.?
No pencil cases, we had the zipper pouches you’d put in your 3-ring binder. As for Trapper Keepers, they were after my time. waves cane
However, those fancy binders with the clear plastic in the front? Where you could slide in whatever picture you wanted? Megamega cool.
Oh, and you had to have regular Elmer’s school glue. The one kid who had mucilage? Pariah.
I had a Trapper Keeper with a hot-air balloon on the front.
I eventually switched to spiral notebooks, as I’m terrible at organizing binders or keeping them organized. A spiral notebook does that for me.
I thought that counted as a pencil case? Or are you only considering the hard-sided ones?
Wait, there was actually some sort of thing called mucilage that was an Elmer’s alternative? I always assumed that word just meant some kind of gross mucus-y thing.
Our desks had a stationary tray thing in the front of the inside for our pencils and erasers. We weren’t allowed to use pen or markers. If the class called for a protractor or compass we’d be given one, and then we’d turn it back in after the lesson.
TrapperKeepers were after my time, too. I seem to remember hearing about some schools banning them because they had turned into some kind of status symbol?
When I was in junior high school my family was out school shopping and I had to pay for some things with my own money for some reason. I found this cool (well, I thought so anyway) binder; it looked like any other vinyl-covered binder, but I think it was one of the first to have rings that were straight and slanted on one side instead of completely round like your “standard” binder rings. Anyway, it cost a dollar more than I had, so I found my dad in the store and got him to give me a dollar. When my dad found out I’d used it to buy a “fancy” binder instead of a perfectly serviceable “regular” binder, he gave me a contemptuous lecture about how I clearly didn’t understand the value of a dollar (my parents were notorious for buying the absolute cheapest thing that would get the job done, for example, our base model Plymouth Volare station wagon). Bah. That was 30 years ago and I still have that damn binder. Sturdy, it is 
I had the same one!
Blue Canvas binders that got covered in liquid paper.
And Pee-Chees
Elmer (Borden, actually) made mucilage in addition to Elmer’s Glue and other products. Other companies made it as well. I haven’t seen it in a long time. I got the impression that it was only really useful for sticking paper to other paper, whereas Elmer’s regular glue could be used for a variety of other things. My father, whose hobby was and is woodworking, used to keep a large bottle of Elmer’s wood glue around because it made a stronger bond. It was yellow, as opposed to the regular all-purpose glue. For regular gluing purposes, we generally used the all-purpose glue.
My maternal grandfather used mucilage, so it must have been cheaper than all-purpose glue. He was the king of the penny pinchers.
It had a very distinctive looking bottle … dark brown, with an orange rubber tip that you pressed down on to make the mucilage come out, and after you used it maybe three times, the tip was perpetually crusted over with dried bits of the stuff.