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Here's the Scripto, working, with the erasers and in better light. The discoloration on the barrel is some tape adhesive I haven't removed yet.

60s or 70s; the history of Scripto pencils doesn't seem to be readily available or comprehensive, alas. The inner eraser pulls out to reveal lead storage, and the thing will take full length leads.

I have a couple of older "vintage" pencils, but most of what I have were made in the last 30 or 40 years. I have just one 2 mm clutch pencil, actually a drafting leadholder, and a couple of the rotary desktop lead pointers for them. The two I reach for most often, though, are a 0.3 mm Pentel Sharp, and a 0.5 mm Uni Kuru Toga.

Now if I could just come up with a 5.6 mm clutch pencil (not difficult) I have a set of colored leads for it. I also need one for some 1/2 inch x 12 inch "leads" I have here.

Drafting leadholders are clutch pencils; they use expanding fingers to "clutch" the lead at the business end of the pencil. Some clutch pencils, usually the ones for larger diameter leads (like my 5.6 mm leads) are usually called "artists' pencils," "sketch pencils," or sometimes "shop pencils." Lamy makes, or made, something called a Scribble that uses 3.15 mm leads, and is considered a sketch pencil. Jetpens carries them in their drafting pencils section.

They also have Pilot clutch-point pencils in 0.5 mm, but I think the term is used to mean something else there.

For drafting here, mostly what I've seen are Rotring, Staedler, and Faber Castell. But if they do have artists pencils, that sounds pretty convenient.

The pencil I was looking at seems like it was refitted w/ a more contemporary cone cap bottom. Really, now I'm looking at pencils online.  And again, the vintage ones are really interesting.

Here is the majority of my mechanical pencils, the ones that aren't meant to be disposable. For some I have duplicates as well.

Pentel 0.3 mm Sharp; unknown square Chinese 0.5 mm, Pentel 0.5 mm Slim Sliding Sleeve, Pentel 0.5 mm Sharp, Pentel 0.5 mm Graphgear 1000, Zebra 0.5 mm M-402, Pentel 0.7 mm Sharp, Pentel 0.9 mm Sharp, Pentel 0.9 mm Sharp with custom stainless steel barrel, Cross 0.9 mm Cardinal, Scripto 0.9 mm Thin Lead, Windsor 1.2 mm, Staedtler 2 mm leadholder, Zebra 0.5 mm mini, Waterman's 1.2 mm, Carter's 1.2 mm.

-- Edited by Chthulhu on Saturday 4th of June 2011 09:59:18 AM

-- Edited by Chthulhu on Saturday 4th of June 2011 09:59:37 AM

The Stadtler is a modern Chinese one; the Sliding Sleeve Pentel I found somewhere, can't remember where, but it had a big ding in the aluminum barrel that I was able to work out with a piece of steel rod with a rounded end. The Windsor is a really cheap-feeling thing with a molded plastic barrel and a flimsy metal cap. It *is* actually as bent as it appears in the photo.

The Waterman is half of a vest-pocket set with a matching fountain pen of the same size, but I think the blue Carter's is prettier; that one came from a friend in Québec, and it belonged to his mother. The GraphGear is an exceptionally well-made pencil; the sleeve extends with the lead by pressing the button, and the whole thing retracts by pressing the clip. It's all very solid, and the knurled grip rotates, with a window to select which lead type you have in it.

Both the Carter's and the Waterman's pencils are about 90 years old, by the way, and work just fine.

I think what happened to it, and to the Scripto to a lesser degree, was that the pencils were bundled together, probably with other pencils and/or pens, with a rubber band for a long period of time. The part of the Windsor that is bent is the one-piece plastic barrel. I *might* try warming it in hot water some time to see if I can straighten it out again.

The pen of the Waterman's set obviously got a lot more use: the tipping is severely worn down on the nib, and it's cracked from the heart-shaped hole halfway to one side. It's also missing its ring. :-/