That little piece of wood around lead with an eraser at the end of it is 152 years old, having been patented by Hymen Lipman on March 30, 1858. Four years later, he sold the patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000.
The lowly pencil is still here despite inventions such as the typewriter, ballpoint pen, pcs and all sorts of messaging devices. And, the US remains the single largest market for wood-encased pencils, most of which come from China (big surprise there).
Except when the eraser gets hard (I hate that) or if, while erasing, the eraser falls out, there is not much that can go wrong with a pencil. There are no batteries or cartridges to replace. If the point breaks, just sharpen it. If you use it up, just get another one as they're cheap. During back-to-school sales I've bought eight pencils for as little as 5 cents.
Europeans generally prefer their pencils with a separate eraser.
Doug Martin, a design engineer at Bowling Green State University's Department of Chemistry spends most of his time designing computer interface modes, but has a collection of over 10,000 pencils.
The production of a pencil is a world effort. Raw cedar from the US is made into slats in China and then made into pencils, often with Malaysian rubber.
Looking around my desk, I see I have four pencils and ten mechanical pencils. My excuse is that I don't have a pencil sharpener at this site.
Can I Borrow Your Pencil? --DaCoot
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