Mechanical Pencils and Lead

Mechanical pencils existed in one form or another for the better part of five centuries. Vague details exist of a brass propelling pencil that used a spring as early as 1636 and an actual early mechanical pencil was found on the wreckage of the HMS Pandora, a ship that sank in 1791. But the first mechanical pencil patent wasn’t applied for until 1822, when John Hawkins and Sampson Mordan patented an “ever-pointed” pencil in Britain. Eleven years later, James Bogardus patented a “forever pointed” pencil in the U.S. As impressive as these mechanical pencils had become, they still had a design flaw when compared to traditional wooden pencils. The clutch on the Eagle Automatic had too much give for these pencils to be used for professional drafting. This problem was fixed in Japan in 1915 with the Ever-Ready Sharp Pencil and again in Geneva in 1929 with the Caran d’Ache Fixpencil. Since then, the biggest changes in mechanical pencils are the switch from metal and wood casings to plastic casings, at least for casual pencil use, and the inclusion of an eraser on the end of most mechanical pencils. Both of these features are designed to make mechanical pencils more convenient for school and everyday use. Mechanical drafting pencils still tend to be made of metal and rarely have attached erasers