The History of Pencils by Dylan Mazzella

The History Of Pencils

     The first writing utensil that remotely resembled the pencil was the stylus, a utensil made of graphite, used in ancient Rome. Writers, or scribes as they were referred to, would use styluses to imprint readable words on papyrus, an early form of paper, without ripping the papyrus. Graphite came into abundant use following the discovery of a graphite deposit in England in 1564. It became very clear that graphite was too brittle to be used alone, and the idea was presented that graphite should be inserted in hollow wood, which lead to our modern day pencil. 

     The first time pencils were mass produced was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. Sticks of graphite were glued into hollow wood cases assembled from two pieces of wood. Graphite was only available in England, but by the late 1700s, pencils were produced with cores made by mixing graphite, sulfur and other mixing agents. These pencils were produced in Germany, but were seen as inferior to the English pencils being produced. Soon after, a true pencil hero came along by the name of Nicolas Jacques Conté. 

     In 1795, pencil production changed enormously. French chemist Nicolas Jacques Conté received patent for the modern pencil production process. He set out to produce a new working lead, to replace the very expensive and hard to purify, at the time, graphite. To produce these modern pencils, he would mix powdered graphite and clay, and form sticks with them. Afterwards, he would harden these sticks in a furnace. Conté was the first to use powdered graphite for pencil production, and is one of the main names associated with modern day pencils. 

   You must be wondering, "how were pencils being sharpened at this time?" To answer that question, pencils at the time were sharpened with small knives and maybe even sand paper. In the year 1828, a French mathematician by the name of Bernard Lassimonne patented the first modern pencil sharpener. The sharpener quickly proved inefficient, so it did not gain a whole lot of popularity. Soon after, Thierry des Estivaux patented the "prism sharpener," which is the design seen in most hand held sharpeners that we use today. Others improved upon his sharpener, making it easier to use, and electric sharpeners came into use in the 1940s. Since then, there have not been many changes in pencil sharpeners.