The typical pencil can draw a line 35 miles long!

Pieces of bread were used to erase lead pencil before rubber came into use.

John Steinbeck, who wrote The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row, used as many as 60 cedar pencils every day.

Before he wrote Walden, Henry David Thoreau manufactured pencils in his father's factory. Thoreau's pencils held the reputation of being the hardest, blackest pencils in the United States.

Thomas Edison's bright idea was to keep a 3-inch-long pencil in his vest pocket just to jot down notes!

 Pencils were standard issue for soldiers during the Civil War.

When and where was the pencil invented?
Some time prior to about 1560, graphite was discovered near Borrowdale, England, supposedly when a large tree was uprooted in a storm, exposing a black substance beneath its roots. The usefulness of graphite as a marking substance was quickly realized. Though the exact date is not known for certain, the year 1565 marks the first record of a pencil consisting of a piece of graphite inserted into a wood shaft, making the first ancestor of today's pencil. Though it's thought that the first pencils were English, there was further development by European craftsmen.


Who invented the first pencil?
While it's not known who actually invented the first pencil, it was first documented in 1565 by Conrad Gesner, and its invention is sometimes attributed to him. European craftsman (woodworkers) were the first known pencil manufacturers, and it wasn't until the late 1700's that manufacturing techniques similar to those practiced today were developed.


How are pencils made?
It starts with a block of cedar which is then cut into slats. The slats are then stained and grooves are cut into one surface. Prepared leads are placed into the grooves and a second slat is placed on top and bonded with the first. This 'pencil sandwich" is then passed through a milling process to separate the individual pencils. The pencil is painted and finished, a ferrule crimped onto the end, and finally, an eraser is crimped into the ferrule.

Can you get lead poisoning from pencil lead?
Not at all - The so called "lead" in lead pencils is actually graphite, which is a form of carbon and is non-poisonous.Before the discovery of graphite, soft metals such as lead were often used for writing. One early name for graphite was "black lead," and the name 'lead' has remained in use.

Graphite came into widespread use following the discovery of a large graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England in 1564. Graphite left a darker mark than lead, but was so soft and brittle that it required a holder. At first, sticks of graphite were wrapped in string. Later, the graphite was inserted into wooden sticks that had been hollowed-out by hand. The wood-cased pencil was born.

The first mass-produced pencils were made in Nuremberg, Germany in 1662. Until the war with England cut off imports, pencils used in America came from overseas. (William Monroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812.) Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. George Washington used a three-inch pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Territory in 1762.

The first mass-produced pencils were unpainted, to show off their high-quality wood casings. However, by the 1890s, many manufacturers were painting their pencils and giving them brand names.

Pencils have been painted yellow ever since the 1890s. And that bright color isn't just so you can find them on your desk more easily. During the 1800s, the best graphite in the world came from China. American pencil makers wanted a special way to tell people that their pencils contained Chinese graphite. In China, the color yellow is associated with royalty and respect. American pencil manufacturers began painting their pencils bright yellow to communicate this "regal" feeling and association with China. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, 75% of the pencils sold in the United States are painted yellow!

Early American pencils were made from Eastern Red Cedar, a strong, splinter-resistant wood that grew in Tennessee and other parts of the southeastern United States. By the 1900s, pencil manufacturers needed additional sources of wood, and turned to California's Sierra Nevada mountains. There they found Incense-cedar, a species that grew in abundance and made superior pencils. California Incense-cedar soon became the wood of choice for domestic and international pencil makers.

To ensure the continued availability of Incense-cedar, forest workers have carefully managed the stands of trees in which Incense-cedar grows, and timber companies have been careful to harvest the trees on a sustained-yield basis. "Sustained-yield" means that the annual growth of the forest is greater than the amount harvested from the forest. Forests managed on a sustained-yield basis are abundant and healthy, and will continue to provide wood for people and habitat for animals for generations to come.

There's no lead in pencil lead. The center of the pencil -- known as the writing core -- is made of a nontoxic mineral called graphite. In 1821, Charles Dunbar (the brother-in-law of author Henry David Thoreau) discovered a graphite deposit in New England. This graphite was certified as far superior to any previously found in the United States. With this high-quality material for its writing cores, the Thoreau pencil company came to be known as the maker of the finest pencils in America.

Today's writing cores are a mixture of graphite and clay. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, pencil makers can adjust the "hardness" of the writing core.

The hardness of the core is often marked on the pencil -- look for a number (such as "2" or "3"). The higher the number the harder the writing core. You might see other markings on pencils. Some pencil manufacturers use the letter "H" to indicate a hard pencil. Likewise, a pencil maker might use the letter "B" to designate the blackness of the pencil's mark. The letter "F" is also used to indicate that the pencil sharpens to a fine pont.

Pencil makers also use combinations of letters -- a pencil marked "HB" is hard and black; a pencil marked "HH" is very hard, and a pencil marked "HHBBB" is very hard and really, really black!