You come across these 'how a pencil is made' sets quite regularly from the likes of Staedtler, Dixon and Cumberland, however, Royal Sovereign sets appear much less frequently. There is an old Banks set which I don't have but am looking to get.  If you have that one, I'd be very happy to talk about... Continue Reading →

THIS IS PART 4 OF 6 You can go back to Part 3 HERE --------------- Next up we have the Pencils (Manufacturers' Maximum Prices) (No. 2) Directions of 1944. I've cut out the middle section as it is largely a repetition of a previous Direction. Essentially these Directions just set out the updated pricing for... Continue Reading →

THIS IS PART 3 OF 6 You can go back to Part 2 HERE --------------- If we take a quick look at the Finance Act 1942, we can see that not only were Utility items required to display the CC41 Utility Mark, but they were also exempt from the Purchase Tax that was brought in... Continue Reading →

This is Part 2 of 6 You can go back to Part 1 HERE --------------- Turning to War Drawing pencils, we can see that the grade list has been expanded.  Again they can be round or hex, but I don't recall seeing a single example of a round War Drawing.  If you've got one, let... Continue Reading →

This is the first part of a 6 part series.  I will amend this page once they are all up to have a landing point for each part (over the next day or two). ...... War Drawing pencils are a rare breed.  Not because they are rare to come across (in fact you can usually... Continue Reading →

The Civil Service pencil is a bit of an off-shoot from the HMSO pencils.  As such, I've found that normally they are also stamped with the Stationery Office lettering, but not always. Stamping or not, they were procured and supplied by the HMSO. What I would say is that the Civil Service pencils tend to... Continue Reading →

Most people will be familiar with De La Rue, usually though: (i) playing cards; (ii) printing money; or (iii) Onoto pens.  As you could probably guess, I'm going to focus on their woodcased pencils and on this occasion the 'ledger pencil'. Whilst I couldn't find a direct reference to the ledger pencils, they are very... Continue Reading →

This post came about because of an interesting quirk with Faber's Polygrade pencils, the 'moving' F grade.  You may have noticed it, then again, there's a good chance most people haven't. I'm not going to discuss Polygrades too much from a 'general history' point, so if you want to look at good pictures of the... Continue Reading →

Let’s talk about the Cumberland Pencil Co; not the one that directly went on the become 'Derwent' and has a pencil museum, the other one.  Keswick pencil history can be a little confusing at times but I've tried to piece a few things around today's example from the collection. Originally run as 'R. Wilson &... Continue Reading →

I've decided to group a couple of pencils together for this post; the E Wolff & Son 'Mathematical' pencil and the L & C Hardtmuth 'Compass' pencil.  This is simply because I only have one example of the Wolff and given that it is almost identical to the Hardtmuths, both in terms of construction and... Continue Reading →