Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Pencil shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Pencil offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Pencil at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Pencil? Wrong! If the Pencil is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Pencil then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Pencil? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Pencil and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Pencil wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Pencil then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Pencil site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Pencil, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Pencil, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

This article is about the handwriting instrument. For other uses, see Pencil (disambiguation). A 'pencil is a writing instrument or drawing instrument consisting of a thin stick of pigment (usually graphite, but can also be coloured pigment or charcoal) and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder though paper and plastic sheaths are also used. Pencils are distinct from pens, which use a liquid marking material.

History The archetypal pencil may have been the ancient Rome stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made of lead and used for scratching on papyrus, a form of early paper. The word pencil comes from the Latin word pencillus which means "little tail."

Discovery of graphite deposit Some time prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered at the site of Seathwaite Fell near Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. This was and remains the only deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form. Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead. Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore"). The black core of pencils is still sometimes referred to as "lead," even though it never contained the Chemical element lead.

The value of graphite was soon realized to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannon balls, and the mines were taken over by the The Crown and guarded. Graphite had to be smuggled out for use in pencils. Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of case. Graphite sticks were at first wrapped in string or in Leather for stability. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attentions of artists all over the "known world."

Although deposits of graphite had been found in other parts of the world, they were not of the same purity and quality as the Borrowdale find, and had to be crushed to remove the impurities, leaving only graphite powder. England continued to enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found. The distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. Today, the town of Keswick, Cumbria, near the original findings of block graphite, has a pencil museum.The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite, sulfur, and antimony.

Wood holders added It was the Italians who first thought of wooden holders. An Italian couple in particular, named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti, were believed to be the ones to create the first blueprints for the modern carpentry pencil for the purpose of marking their carpentry pieces; however, their version was instead a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. They did this at first by hollowing out a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the two halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.

English and German pencils were not available to the France during the Napoleonic wars. It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon I of France's army to change this. In 1795 Nicholas Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth of Koh-I-Noor (company) in 1790 remains in present use.

American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and George Washington used a three-inch pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Territory in 1762. It is said that William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812. This was not the only pencil-making in Concord. According to Henry Petroski, transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.

Munroe's method of making pencils was painstakingly slow, and in the neighbouring town of Acton, Massachusetts, a pencil mill owner named Ebenezer Wood set out to automate the process at his own pencil mill located at Nashoba Brook along the old Davis Road. He used the first circular saw in pencil production. He constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked. One of those was Eberhard Faber of New York, who became the leader in pencil production.

Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the Tantiusques granite Mining in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to mass production pencils. By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world’s largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company. Dixon Ticonderoga Company Tantiusques Graphite Mine

Manufacture Modern pencils are made industrially by mixing finely ground graphite and clay powders, adding water, forming long spaghetti-like strings, and firing them in a kiln (thermally insulated chambers). The resulting strings are dipped in oil or molten wax, which seeps into the tiny holes of the material, resulting in smoother writing. A juniper or incense-cedar plank with several long parallel grooves is cut to make something called a slat, and the graphite/clay strings are inserted into the grooves. Another grooved plank is glued on top, and the whole thing is then cut into individual pencils, which are then varnished or painted.

Grading & classification Many pencils across the world and almost all in Europe are graded on the European system using a continuüm from "H" (for hardness) to "B" (for blackness), as well as "F" (for fine point). The standard writing pencil is graded HB. According to Petrosky this system might have been developed in the early 1900s by Brookman (an English pencil maker) which used "B" for black and "H" for hard; a pencil's grade was described by a sequence or successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and HHH for successively harder ones.Petrosky 1990, page 157.

Today a set of pencils ranging from a very hard, light-marking pencil to a very soft, black-marking pencil usually ranges from hardest to softest as follows.

{| align=center style="text-align:center"|- style="height:10px"| style="background:#DDDDDD; width:25px" | || style="background:#CCCCCC; width:25px" | || style="background:#C7C7C7; width:25px" | || style="background:#BBBBBB; width:25px" | || style="background:#B7B7B7; width:25px" | || style="background:#AAAAAA; width:25px" | || style="background:#999999; width:25px" | || style="background:#888888; width:25px" | || style="background:#777777; width:25px;" | || style="background:#666666; width:25px" | || style="background:#555555; width:25px" | || style="background:#4A4A4A; width:25px" | || style="background:#444444; width:25px" | || style="background:#3A3A3A; width:25px" | || style="background:#333333; width:25px" | || style="background:#2a2a2a; width:25px" | || style="background:#222222; width:25px" | || style="background:#1a1a1a; width:25px" | || style="background:#111111; width:25px" | || style="background:#000000; width:25px"||-| 9H || 8H || 7H || 6H || 5H || 4H || 3H || 2H || H || F || HB || B || 2B || 3B || 4B || 5B || 6B || 7B || 8B || 9B|-| colspan=3, style="text-align:left"|Hardest|| colspan=5|→ ||colspan=4|Medium||colspan=5|→||colspan=3 style="text-align:right"|Softest|}

Koh-i-noor offers twenty grades from 10H to 8B for its 1500 serieshttp://www.koh-i-noor.cz/main/main.php?pageid=3211&lang=4&=&filter=&cat=24&position=30 Koh-i-noor Catalog: Graphite Pencis; Derwent produces twenty grades from 9B to 9H for its Graphic pencils http://www.pencils.co.uk/products/derwent.aspx?sid=3&p=1 Derwent Graphic, retrieved Aug 21, 2007 and Staedtler produces sixteen from 8B to 6H for its Mars Lumograph pencils.http://www.staedtler.com/Mars_Lumograph_gb.Staedtler?ActiveID=2213 Staedtler Mars Lumograph Pencils, retrieved Aug 21, 2007 The main market for such wide range of grades are artists who are interested in creating a full range of tones from light grey to black; while engineers prefer harder pencils which allow for a greater control in the shape of the lead. This is reflected in the way pencils are packaged and marketed. For example, for its Graphic pencils Derwent offers three packages of 12 pencils each: Technical (with hard grades from B to 9H), Sketching (with soft grades 9B to H), and Designer (with medium grades 6B to 4H).

Pencils graded using this system are used to measure the hardness and resistance of varnishes and paints. The resistance of a coating (also known as its pencil hardness) is determined as the grade of the hardest pencil that does not mark the coating when pressed firmly against it at a 45 degree angle.This testing method is approved by the ISO as standard ISO 15184:1998 Paints and varnishes -- Determination of film hardness by pencil test http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_tc_browse.htm?commid=47996. See http://www.pra-world.com/technical/testingphysicalhardness.htm for a description of the test. Unfortunately the hardness of pencils are not standardized. For this reason the standard specifies various brands of pencils that are to be used in this test.Simmons, Mac, "The Pencil Hardness Test", Woodwork, April 2000, p76, available at http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/simmons.htm, retrieved Sept. 13, 2007

Another common method uses numbers to designated the grade of a pencil. It was originally created by Conté and adopted in the United States by Thoreau in the 19th centuryPetrosky claims that Conté used integer numbers that started at 1, with higher numbers indicating softer leads, while Thoreau used higher numbers to designate harder leads (Petrosky, 1990, page 157). It is believed that Thoreau developed independently his method of mixing clay and graphite, and his use of numbers to designate grades is evidence that he was at least aware of Conté methods and tried to reverse engineer them. Thoreau offered pencils graduated from 1 to 4 in the middle 1800s (Petrosky, 1990, page 119), see also . The following table shows approximate equivalences between the different systems Petrosky, 1990, page 230):

{| class="wikitable"|-! Tone !! U.S. !! !! style="text-align:right" | World|-|style="background:#444444;"| || #1 || = || style="text-align:right" | B|-|style="background:#555555;"| || #2 || = || style="text-align:right" | HB|-|style="background:#666666;"| ||#2½ * || = || style="text-align:right" | F|-|style="background:#777777;"| ||#3 || = || style="text-align:right" | H|-|style="background:#888888;"| || #4 || = || style="text-align:right" | 2H|}

* Also seen as 2-4/8, 2.5, 2-5/10. Although widely accepted, not all manufacturers follow it; for example, Faber-Castell uses a different equivalence table in its Grip 2001 pencils: 1=2B, 2=B, 2 1/2=HB, 3=H, 4=2H.

The various graphite pencil grades are achieved by altering the proportion of graphite to clay: the more clay the harder the pencilhttp://www.staedtler.com/upload/graphite_video_eng_16461.mpg "Staedtler Pencil", video, retrieved Aug 21, 2007.Petrosky, 1990)http://www.pencils.co.uk/heritage.aspx?id=6&sid=1 Derwent Manufacturing Process, retrieved Aug 21, 2007. Two pencils of the same grade but different manufactures will not necessarily make a mark of identical tone nor have the same hardnessPetrosky claims that pencil grades vary "depending upon the manufacturer, when the pencils are made, and the source of graphite and clay. One analyst found that graphitic carbon content, for example, to vary from about 30 to about 65 in a variety of different pencils bearing the same designation." Petrosky, 1990, page 229.

Colour of pencils The majority of pencils made in the United States are painted yellow. 75% of the 2.8 billion pencils made in the United States are painted yellow (Steve Ritter "Pencils & Pencil Lead", Chemical & Engineering News, Volume 79, Number 42 page 35, Oct 15, 2001 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7942sci4.html). According to Henry Petroski Petrosky, 1990, pages 162-163, this tradition began in 1890 when the L. & C. Hardtmuth Company of Austria-Hungary introduced their Koh-I-Noor (company) brand, named after the Koh-i-Noor. It was intended to be the world's best and most expensive pencil, and at a time when most pencils were either painted in dark colours or not at all, the Koh-I-Noor was yellow. As well as simply being distinctive, the colour may have been inspired by the Austria-Hungary#Flags and heraldry of Austria-Hungary; it was also suggestive of the Orient, at a time when the best-quality graphite came from Siberia. Other companies then copied the yellow colour so that their pencils would be associated with this high-quality brand, and chose brand names with explicit Oriental references, such as Mikado (renamed MiradoEagle Pencil Company applied for the trademark Mirado in 1947 (US Trademark 71515261). It is common belief that this was an attempt to disassociate the pencil brand from Japan, as one of the meanings of Mikado is emperor of Japan. Petrosky (Petrosky, 1990) states that Eagle Pencil Company changed the name after the Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor.Mikado/Mirado pencils were originally made by Eagle Pencil Company--today Berol--but it can also be found today under the trademark Papermate and Sanford as Sanford owns Berol and the trademark Papermate http://www.brandnamepencils.com/brands/eagle/mikado174.shtml Mirado Pencil) and Mongol. http://www.pencilpages.com/gallery/eberhard-faber/mongol.htm Eberhard Faber Pencil Gallery.Originally made by Eberhard Faber the Mongol trademark is now owned by Sanford http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2005/08/mongolized.html Timberlines Blog "Mongolized" Aug 31, 2005, retrieved Aug 23, 2007

Not all countries use yellow pencils, however; Germany pencils, for example, are often green, based on the trademark colours of Faber-Castell, a major German stationery company. Pencils are commonly round, hexagonal or sometimes triangle in section.

Pencil types According to the material used to make them

• Graphite pencils. These are the most common types of pencils. They are made of a mixture of clay and graphite and their darkness varies from light grey to black.
• Charcoal pencils. They are made of charcoal and provide fuller blacks than graphite pencils, but tend to smudge easily and are more abrasive than graphite.
• Crayon pencils
• Grease pencils, also known as China markers. They write on virtually any surface (including glass, metal and photographs). The most commonly found grease pencils are encased in paper (made by Berol), but they can also be encased in wood (Staedtler Omnichrom).
• Watercolour pencils

According to their use

• Carpenter's pencils. These are pencils that have two main properties: their shape prevents them from rolling, and their lead is strong http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/carpentr.htm Doug Martin, 2000, "Carpenter's Pencils", retrieved Aug 23, 2007. The oldest surviving pencil is a German carpenter's pencil dating from the 17th Century and now in the Faber-Castell collectionhttp://www.faber-castell.com.au/docs/default-news.asp?id=19463&domid=1010&sp=E&addlastid=&m1=14248&m2=16959&m3=19364&m4=19463 "History Pencils & Historic Packaging" Faber Castell Australia, retrieved Aug 23, 2007http://www.pencilpages.com/gallery/oldest.htm "Oldest Known Pencil in Existence", retrieved Aug 23, 2007..
• Copying pencils are graphite pencils with an added dye that creates an indelible mark. They were invented in the late 1800s for press copying and as a practical substitute to fountain pens. Their markings are often visually indistinguishable from those of standard graphite pencils, but when moistened their markings dissolve into a coloured ink, which is then pressed into another piece of paper.http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v17/bp17-05.html The Copying Pencil: Composition, History, and Conservation Implications by Liz Dubehttp://blog.awm.gov.au/lambert/?p=95 The Magic of Purple Pencil, retrieved Aug 23, 2007http://pencils.smoky.ca/2006/03/l-c-hardmuth-koh-i-noor-kopierstift-1561 L. & C. Hardmuth Koh-I-Noor Kopierstift 1561, retrieved Aug 23, 2007 There were used until the early 1900s when ball pens slowly replaced them.
• Col-erase. There are colour pencils that can be easily erased. Their main use is in sketching, where the objective is to create an outline using the same colour that other media (such as wax pencils, or watercolour paints) would fillhttp://www.mccannas.com/sketch/supply.htm Art Supplies or when the objective is to scan the colour sketchhttp://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/index.cfm?FeatureID=1625 Sketch to Paint in Photoshop. Some animators prefer col-erase to graphite pencils because they don't smudge as easily, and the different colours allow for better separation of objects in the sketchhttp://smacktalk.smackjeeves.com/03-paperpencilserasers/ Tools of the Trade Papers Pencils and Erases. Copy-editors find them useful too, as their markings stand out more than graphite but can be erasedhttp://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/10/writing-in-color/ See comment "As a professional copy-editor..." . Col-erase is a trademark owned by Sanford (owner of Prismacolor and Berol)http://www.prismacolor.com/sanford/consumer/prismacolor/product/subCategory.jhtml;jsessionid=NDUCWJF4CAK4MCQHUBSCHPQKA4QHQJCK?subCat=SNPRCat130010 Prismacolor Col-Erase Erasable Colored Pencils and for this reason other companies use the "erasable colour pencil" moniker (e.g. Dixon Erasable Coloured Pencilshttps://www.dixonusa.com/index.cfm/fuseaction=shop.product/prdIndex=60 Dixon Erasable Colored Pencils).
• Non-reproducing pencils make marks that are not reproduced by photocopiershttp://www.epinions.com/content_285308063364 Sanford Col-Erase Copy Not Pencils--You Can't Copy This Baby! (Sanford's Copy-not or Staedtler's Mars Non-photo) or by whiteprint copiers (Stedtlers Mars Non print). They are commonly known as copy-not.
• Stenographer's pencil, also known as steno pencil. These pencils are expected to be very reliable, and their lead is break proof. Sometimes steno pencils are sharpened at both endshttp://pencils.smoky.ca/2006/06/reporter-pencils Paper and Pencil Blog "Reporter Pencils" retrieved Aug 23, 2007..
• Golf pencil. Golf pencils are usually short (a common length is 9cm) and very cheap. They are also known as library pencils, as many libraries offer them as disposable writing instruments.

According to their shape

• Triangular
• Hexagonal
• Round

Other types

• The Quadrachromic Pencil is a slightly enlarged pencil with four colours equally partitioned on the tip. The use of each colour while drawing is accomplished by rotating the pencil between the fingers.
• Penny pencil

Miscellaneous Graphite is not poisonous Pencils are students' primary writing instruments. Due to this common usage, the pencil is a common cause of minor puncture injuries in young children. The tip of the lead may leave a grey mark inside the skin for years. This led to the old wives' tale that the lead bits could be passed through the blood vessels into the brain, causing mental retardation in those with such a wound. Pencil "lead" is graphite (carbon) and not the chemical element lead. Residual graphite from a pencil stick does not seem to be poisonous, and graphite is generally harmless if consumed. Graphite - Identification, toxicity, use, water pollution potential, ecological toxicity and regulatory information

First pencil with an attached eraser

On March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencilhttp://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=19783 US Patent 19783 Combination of Lead-Pencil and Eraser byL. Lipman. In 1862 Lipman sold his patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000, who went to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement Petroski, Henry (1990). ''The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-57422-2; ISBN 0-679-73415-5, page 171. In 1875 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer declaring the patent invalid http://supreme.justia.com/us/92/347/case.html Reckendorfer v. Faber 92 U.S. 347 (1875).

Mechanical pencils There are also mechanical pencils, which use mechanical methods to push lead through a hole at the end. The erasers are also removable (and thus replaceable), and usually cover a place to store replacement leads. Mechanical pencils are popular for their longevity and the fact that they never need sharpening.

Lead types are based on thickness. Common sizes are 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9, 1.1, and 1.6 millimetres. The 2.0 mm size is commonly used in designing, artwork, and engineering, but is not commonly used outside these fields due to its high cost. This largest size usually cannot be sharpened in pencil sharpeners: a variety of devices are used, mostly abrasive.

Pencils in space An urban legend in circulation since the 1970s (and told on a 2002 episode of The West Wing (TV series)) tells of NASA spending large sums of money, typically in the millions of dollars, to develop an instrument that would write in space (a space pen). The typical punch line is that either someone supposedly should have sent NASA a pencil, or that the Soviet space program used pencils.

While considered humorous, the story is not true. The Write Stuff, Snopes. January 16, 2007. In fact, graphite pencils were used on all Mercury and Gemini space flights, and were replaced by pressurized "Space Pen" (independently developed without NASA funding) after the Apollo 1 fire. Pencils are, in fact, still used in space, for example aboard the International Space Station.

External links

• The history of pencils
• Pencil made
• Video produced by Staedtler showing how pencils are made (55.3 MB)

References

• Petroski, Henry (1990). The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-57422-2; ISBN 0-679-73415-5.
• Petroski, Henry. "H. D. Thoreau, Engineer." American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 8-16.
• Acton Convservation Commission, Early American Pencils.

This article is about the handwriting instrument. For other uses, see Pencil (disambiguation). A 'pencil is a writing instrument or drawing instrument consisting of a thin stick of pigment (usually graphite, but can also be coloured pigment or charcoal) and clay, usually encased in a thin wood cylinder though paper and plastic sheaths are also used. Pencils are distinct from pens, which use a liquid marking material.

History The archetypal pencil may have been the ancient Rome stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made of lead and used for scratching on papyrus, a form of early paper. The word pencil comes from the Latin word pencillus which means "little tail."

Discovery of graphite deposit Some time prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered at the site of Seathwaite Fell near Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep. This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. This was and remains the only deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form. Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead. Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore"). The black core of pencils is still sometimes referred to as "lead," even though it never contained the Chemical element lead.

The value of graphite was soon realized to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannon balls, and the mines were taken over by the The Crown and guarded. Graphite had to be smuggled out for use in pencils. Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of case. Graphite sticks were at first wrapped in string or in Leather for stability. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attentions of artists all over the "known world."

Although deposits of graphite had been found in other parts of the world, they were not of the same purity and quality as the Borrowdale find, and had to be crushed to remove the impurities, leaving only graphite powder. England continued to enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found. The distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. Today, the town of Keswick, Cumbria, near the original findings of block graphite, has a pencil museum.The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite, sulfur, and antimony.

Wood holders added It was the Italians who first thought of wooden holders. An Italian couple in particular, named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti, were believed to be the ones to create the first blueprints for the modern carpentry pencil for the purpose of marking their carpentry pieces; however, their version was instead a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. They did this at first by hollowing out a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the two halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.

English and German pencils were not available to the France during the Napoleonic wars. It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon I of France's army to change this. In 1795 Nicholas Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth of Koh-I-Noor (company) in 1790 remains in present use.

American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and George Washington used a three-inch pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Territory in 1762. It is said that William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812. This was not the only pencil-making in Concord. According to Henry Petroski, transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.

Munroe's method of making pencils was painstakingly slow, and in the neighbouring town of Acton, Massachusetts, a pencil mill owner named Ebenezer Wood set out to automate the process at his own pencil mill located at Nashoba Brook along the old Davis Road. He used the first circular saw in pencil production. He constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked. One of those was Eberhard Faber of New York, who became the leader in pencil production.

Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the Tantiusques granite Mining in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to mass production pencils. By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world’s largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company. Dixon Ticonderoga Company Tantiusques Graphite Mine

Manufacture Modern pencils are made industrially by mixing finely ground graphite and clay powders, adding water, forming long spaghetti-like strings, and firing them in a kiln (thermally insulated chambers). The resulting strings are dipped in oil or molten wax, which seeps into the tiny holes of the material, resulting in smoother writing. A juniper or incense-cedar plank with several long parallel grooves is cut to make something called a slat, and the graphite/clay strings are inserted into the grooves. Another grooved plank is glued on top, and the whole thing is then cut into individual pencils, which are then varnished or painted.

Grading & classification Many pencils across the world and almost all in Europe are graded on the European system using a continuüm from "H" (for hardness) to "B" (for blackness), as well as "F" (for fine point). The standard writing pencil is graded HB. According to Petrosky this system might have been developed in the early 1900s by Brookman (an English pencil maker) which used "B" for black and "H" for hard; a pencil's grade was described by a sequence or successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and HHH for successively harder ones.Petrosky 1990, page 157.

Today a set of pencils ranging from a very hard, light-marking pencil to a very soft, black-marking pencil usually ranges from hardest to softest as follows.

{| align=center style="text-align:center"|- style="height:10px"| style="background:#DDDDDD; width:25px" | || style="background:#CCCCCC; width:25px" | || style="background:#C7C7C7; width:25px" | || style="background:#BBBBBB; width:25px" | || style="background:#B7B7B7; width:25px" | || style="background:#AAAAAA; width:25px" | || style="background:#999999; width:25px" | || style="background:#888888; width:25px" | || style="background:#777777; width:25px;" | || style="background:#666666; width:25px" | || style="background:#555555; width:25px" | || style="background:#4A4A4A; width:25px" | || style="background:#444444; width:25px" | || style="background:#3A3A3A; width:25px" | || style="background:#333333; width:25px" | || style="background:#2a2a2a; width:25px" | || style="background:#222222; width:25px" | || style="background:#1a1a1a; width:25px" | || style="background:#111111; width:25px" | || style="background:#000000; width:25px"||-| 9H || 8H || 7H || 6H || 5H || 4H || 3H || 2H || H || F || HB || B || 2B || 3B || 4B || 5B || 6B || 7B || 8B || 9B|-| colspan=3, style="text-align:left"|Hardest|| colspan=5|→ ||colspan=4|Medium||colspan=5|→||colspan=3 style="text-align:right"|Softest|}

Koh-i-noor offers twenty grades from 10H to 8B for its 1500 serieshttp://www.koh-i-noor.cz/main/main.php?pageid=3211&lang=4&=&filter=&cat=24&position=30 Koh-i-noor Catalog: Graphite Pencis; Derwent produces twenty grades from 9B to 9H for its Graphic pencils http://www.pencils.co.uk/products/derwent.aspx?sid=3&p=1 Derwent Graphic, retrieved Aug 21, 2007 and Staedtler produces sixteen from 8B to 6H for its Mars Lumograph pencils.http://www.staedtler.com/Mars_Lumograph_gb.Staedtler?ActiveID=2213 Staedtler Mars Lumograph Pencils, retrieved Aug 21, 2007 The main market for such wide range of grades are artists who are interested in creating a full range of tones from light grey to black; while engineers prefer harder pencils which allow for a greater control in the shape of the lead. This is reflected in the way pencils are packaged and marketed. For example, for its Graphic pencils Derwent offers three packages of 12 pencils each: Technical (with hard grades from B to 9H), Sketching (with soft grades 9B to H), and Designer (with medium grades 6B to 4H).

Pencils graded using this system are used to measure the hardness and resistance of varnishes and paints. The resistance of a coating (also known as its pencil hardness) is determined as the grade of the hardest pencil that does not mark the coating when pressed firmly against it at a 45 degree angle.This testing method is approved by the ISO as standard ISO 15184:1998 Paints and varnishes -- Determination of film hardness by pencil test http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_tc_browse.htm?commid=47996. See http://www.pra-world.com/technical/testingphysicalhardness.htm for a description of the test. Unfortunately the hardness of pencils are not standardized. For this reason the standard specifies various brands of pencils that are to be used in this test.Simmons, Mac, "The Pencil Hardness Test", Woodwork, April 2000, p76, available at http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/simmons.htm, retrieved Sept. 13, 2007

Another common method uses numbers to designated the grade of a pencil. It was originally created by Conté and adopted in the United States by Thoreau in the 19th centuryPetrosky claims that Conté used integer numbers that started at 1, with higher numbers indicating softer leads, while Thoreau used higher numbers to designate harder leads (Petrosky, 1990, page 157). It is believed that Thoreau developed independently his method of mixing clay and graphite, and his use of numbers to designate grades is evidence that he was at least aware of Conté methods and tried to reverse engineer them. Thoreau offered pencils graduated from 1 to 4 in the middle 1800s (Petrosky, 1990, page 119), see also . The following table shows approximate equivalences between the different systems Petrosky, 1990, page 230):

{| class="wikitable"|-! Tone !! U.S. !! !! style="text-align:right" | World|-|style="background:#444444;"| || #1 || = || style="text-align:right" | B|-|style="background:#555555;"| || #2 || = || style="text-align:right" | HB|-|style="background:#666666;"| ||#2½ * || = || style="text-align:right" | F|-|style="background:#777777;"| ||#3 || = || style="text-align:right" | H|-|style="background:#888888;"| || #4 || = || style="text-align:right" | 2H|}

* Also seen as 2-4/8, 2.5, 2-5/10. Although widely accepted, not all manufacturers follow it; for example, Faber-Castell uses a different equivalence table in its Grip 2001 pencils: 1=2B, 2=B, 2 1/2=HB, 3=H, 4=2H.

The various graphite pencil grades are achieved by altering the proportion of graphite to clay: the more clay the harder the pencilhttp://www.staedtler.com/upload/graphite_video_eng_16461.mpg "Staedtler Pencil", video, retrieved Aug 21, 2007.Petrosky, 1990)http://www.pencils.co.uk/heritage.aspx?id=6&sid=1 Derwent Manufacturing Process, retrieved Aug 21, 2007. Two pencils of the same grade but different manufactures will not necessarily make a mark of identical tone nor have the same hardnessPetrosky claims that pencil grades vary "depending upon the manufacturer, when the pencils are made, and the source of graphite and clay. One analyst found that graphitic carbon content, for example, to vary from about 30 to about 65 in a variety of different pencils bearing the same designation." Petrosky, 1990, page 229.

Colour of pencils The majority of pencils made in the United States are painted yellow. 75% of the 2.8 billion pencils made in the United States are painted yellow (Steve Ritter "Pencils & Pencil Lead", Chemical & Engineering News, Volume 79, Number 42 page 35, Oct 15, 2001 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/7942sci4.html). According to Henry Petroski Petrosky, 1990, pages 162-163, this tradition began in 1890 when the L. & C. Hardtmuth Company of Austria-Hungary introduced their Koh-I-Noor (company) brand, named after the Koh-i-Noor. It was intended to be the world's best and most expensive pencil, and at a time when most pencils were either painted in dark colours or not at all, the Koh-I-Noor was yellow. As well as simply being distinctive, the colour may have been inspired by the Austria-Hungary#Flags and heraldry of Austria-Hungary; it was also suggestive of the Orient, at a time when the best-quality graphite came from Siberia. Other companies then copied the yellow colour so that their pencils would be associated with this high-quality brand, and chose brand names with explicit Oriental references, such as Mikado (renamed MiradoEagle Pencil Company applied for the trademark Mirado in 1947 (US Trademark 71515261). It is common belief that this was an attempt to disassociate the pencil brand from Japan, as one of the meanings of Mikado is emperor of Japan. Petrosky (Petrosky, 1990) states that Eagle Pencil Company changed the name after the Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor.Mikado/Mirado pencils were originally made by Eagle Pencil Company--today Berol--but it can also be found today under the trademark Papermate and Sanford as Sanford owns Berol and the trademark Papermate http://www.brandnamepencils.com/brands/eagle/mikado174.shtml Mirado Pencil) and Mongol. http://www.pencilpages.com/gallery/eberhard-faber/mongol.htm Eberhard Faber Pencil Gallery.Originally made by Eberhard Faber the Mongol trademark is now owned by Sanford http://timberlines.blogspot.com/2005/08/mongolized.html Timberlines Blog "Mongolized" Aug 31, 2005, retrieved Aug 23, 2007

Not all countries use yellow pencils, however; Germany pencils, for example, are often green, based on the trademark colours of Faber-Castell, a major German stationery company. Pencils are commonly round, hexagonal or sometimes triangle in section.

Pencil types According to the material used to make them

• Graphite pencils. These are the most common types of pencils. They are made of a mixture of clay and graphite and their darkness varies from light grey to black.
• Charcoal pencils. They are made of charcoal and provide fuller blacks than graphite pencils, but tend to smudge easily and are more abrasive than graphite.
• Crayon pencils
• Grease pencils, also known as China markers. They write on virtually any surface (including glass, metal and photographs). The most commonly found grease pencils are encased in paper (made by Berol), but they can also be encased in wood (Staedtler Omnichrom).
• Watercolour pencils

According to their use

• Carpenter's pencils. These are pencils that have two main properties: their shape prevents them from rolling, and their lead is strong http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/carpentr.htm Doug Martin, 2000, "Carpenter's Pencils", retrieved Aug 23, 2007. The oldest surviving pencil is a German carpenter's pencil dating from the 17th Century and now in the Faber-Castell collectionhttp://www.faber-castell.com.au/docs/default-news.asp?id=19463&domid=1010&sp=E&addlastid=&m1=14248&m2=16959&m3=19364&m4=19463 "History Pencils & Historic Packaging" Faber Castell Australia, retrieved Aug 23, 2007http://www.pencilpages.com/gallery/oldest.htm "Oldest Known Pencil in Existence", retrieved Aug 23, 2007..
• Copying pencils are graphite pencils with an added dye that creates an indelible mark. They were invented in the late 1800s for press copying and as a practical substitute to fountain pens. Their markings are often visually indistinguishable from those of standard graphite pencils, but when moistened their markings dissolve into a coloured ink, which is then pressed into another piece of paper.http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v17/bp17-05.html The Copying Pencil: Composition, History, and Conservation Implications by Liz Dubehttp://blog.awm.gov.au/lambert/?p=95 The Magic of Purple Pencil, retrieved Aug 23, 2007http://pencils.smoky.ca/2006/03/l-c-hardmuth-koh-i-noor-kopierstift-1561 L. & C. Hardmuth Koh-I-Noor Kopierstift 1561, retrieved Aug 23, 2007 There were used until the early 1900s when ball pens slowly replaced them.
• Col-erase. There are colour pencils that can be easily erased. Their main use is in sketching, where the objective is to create an outline using the same colour that other media (such as wax pencils, or watercolour paints) would fillhttp://www.mccannas.com/sketch/supply.htm Art Supplies or when the objective is to scan the colour sketchhttp://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/index.cfm?FeatureID=1625 Sketch to Paint in Photoshop. Some animators prefer col-erase to graphite pencils because they don't smudge as easily, and the different colours allow for better separation of objects in the sketchhttp://smacktalk.smackjeeves.com/03-paperpencilserasers/ Tools of the Trade Papers Pencils and Erases. Copy-editors find them useful too, as their markings stand out more than graphite but can be erasedhttp://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/10/writing-in-color/ See comment "As a professional copy-editor..." . Col-erase is a trademark owned by Sanford (owner of Prismacolor and Berol)http://www.prismacolor.com/sanford/consumer/prismacolor/product/subCategory.jhtml;jsessionid=NDUCWJF4CAK4MCQHUBSCHPQKA4QHQJCK?subCat=SNPRCat130010 Prismacolor Col-Erase Erasable Colored Pencils and for this reason other companies use the "erasable colour pencil" moniker (e.g. Dixon Erasable Coloured Pencilshttps://www.dixonusa.com/index.cfm/fuseaction=shop.product/prdIndex=60 Dixon Erasable Colored Pencils).
• Non-reproducing pencils make marks that are not reproduced by photocopiershttp://www.epinions.com/content_285308063364 Sanford Col-Erase Copy Not Pencils--You Can't Copy This Baby! (Sanford's Copy-not or Staedtler's Mars Non-photo) or by whiteprint copiers (Stedtlers Mars Non print). They are commonly known as copy-not.
• Stenographer's pencil, also known as steno pencil. These pencils are expected to be very reliable, and their lead is break proof. Sometimes steno pencils are sharpened at both endshttp://pencils.smoky.ca/2006/06/reporter-pencils Paper and Pencil Blog "Reporter Pencils" retrieved Aug 23, 2007..
• Golf pencil. Golf pencils are usually short (a common length is 9cm) and very cheap. They are also known as library pencils, as many libraries offer them as disposable writing instruments.

According to their shape

• Triangular
• Hexagonal
• Round

Other types

• The Quadrachromic Pencil is a slightly enlarged pencil with four colours equally partitioned on the tip. The use of each colour while drawing is accomplished by rotating the pencil between the fingers.
• Penny pencil

Miscellaneous Graphite is not poisonous Pencils are students' primary writing instruments. Due to this common usage, the pencil is a common cause of minor puncture injuries in young children. The tip of the lead may leave a grey mark inside the skin for years. This led to the old wives' tale that the lead bits could be passed through the blood vessels into the brain, causing mental retardation in those with such a wound. Pencil "lead" is graphite (carbon) and not the chemical element lead. Residual graphite from a pencil stick does not seem to be poisonous, and graphite is generally harmless if consumed. Graphite - Identification, toxicity, use, water pollution potential, ecological toxicity and regulatory information

First pencil with an attached eraser

On March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencilhttp://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=19783 US Patent 19783 Combination of Lead-Pencil and Eraser byL. Lipman. In 1862 Lipman sold his patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000, who went to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement Petroski, Henry (1990). ''The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-57422-2; ISBN 0-679-73415-5, page 171. In 1875 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer declaring the patent invalid http://supreme.justia.com/us/92/347/case.html Reckendorfer v. Faber 92 U.S. 347 (1875).

Mechanical pencils There are also mechanical pencils, which use mechanical methods to push lead through a hole at the end. The erasers are also removable (and thus replaceable), and usually cover a place to store replacement leads. Mechanical pencils are popular for their longevity and the fact that they never need sharpening.

Lead types are based on thickness. Common sizes are 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9, 1.1, and 1.6 millimetres. The 2.0 mm size is commonly used in designing, artwork, and engineering, but is not commonly used outside these fields due to its high cost. This largest size usually cannot be sharpened in pencil sharpeners: a variety of devices are used, mostly abrasive.

Pencils in space An urban legend in circulation since the 1970s (and told on a 2002 episode of The West Wing (TV series)) tells of NASA spending large sums of money, typically in the millions of dollars, to develop an instrument that would write in space (a space pen). The typical punch line is that either someone supposedly should have sent NASA a pencil, or that the Soviet space program used pencils.

While considered humorous, the story is not true. The Write Stuff, Snopes. January 16, 2007. In fact, graphite pencils were used on all Mercury and Gemini space flights, and were replaced by pressurized "Space Pen" (independently developed without NASA funding) after the Apollo 1 fire. Pencils are, in fact, still used in space, for example aboard the International Space Station.

External links

• The history of pencils
• Pencil made
• Video produced by Staedtler showing how pencils are made (55.3 MB)

References

• Petroski, Henry (1990). The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-57422-2; ISBN 0-679-73415-5.
• Petroski, Henry. "H. D. Thoreau, Engineer." American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 8-16.
• Acton Convservation Commission, Early American Pencils.

PENCIL from FOLDOC
PENCIL. Pictorial ENCodIng Language. On-line system to display line structures. Sammet 1969, 675. Try this search on Wikipedia, OneLook, Google

Pencil Limited: consulting, publishing and design.
Pencil’s ethos of simplicity, clarity and insights leading to results is displayed in our consulting, publishing and design work.  

Cumberland Pencil Museum
A history of pencils and pencil making and information about events at this museum in England.

Derwent - Competition
How many pencils in total are there in the Studio Mixed Media blister?

Pencil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pencil is a writing or drawing instrument consisting of a thin stick of pigment (usually graphite, but can also be coloured pigment or charcoal) and clay, usually encased in a ...

Pencils symmetry
Pencils symmetry

Definition: pencil from Online Medical Dictionary
The Online Medical Dictionary is a searchable dictionary of definitions from medicine, science and technology.

BBC - Words and Pictures - Consonant Clusters Magic Pencil
Fill in the missing letters on these activity sheets ck ll st cl fr thr str sp ld nk Select a cluster and print out the pop up window.

BBC - The Little Animals Activity Centre - The Missing Pencil (without ...
All subjects for ages 4 - 11 years

Remarkable Pencils Ltd - Recycled Pencils
UK Recycled Promotional Products from Remarkable Pencils Ltd. We manufacture a range of environmentally friendly stationary and promotional gifts made from recycled paper and ...