![]() ![]() Or maybe that should be peanut butter and bread: before rubber erasers came along, some people further back in history used crustless bread as erasers. The eraser: Pencils and erasers now go together like peanut butter and jelly. Other pencil makers quickly followed suit. The yellow color, traditionally associated with royalty in China, was meant to portray the pencils as a luxury item. The color: Historical accounts vary, but a Czech company is credited with starting this trend at the World’s Fair in 1889, painting its pencils containing fine graphite from the Far East. But when did pencils start looking the way they do today? When it comes to today’s pencil, there are a few traits you probably associate with it. The #2 pencil: A sharper styleįrom those early days, the pencil has evolved into the familiar tool we know today. The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner is credited as being the first person to describe putting graphite into a wooden holder. That’s why, to this day, we refer to what’s in a pencil as “lead,” even though it’s not.Įarly on, the graphite was sometimes wrapped in sheepskin or string to make it easier for the writer to hold. People weren’t quite up on chemistry in those days, so it was another couple of centuries before a chemist determined graphite was a form of carbon, not lead as they originally thought. The graphite was pure and solid, perfectly suited for writing, although the only people using it at first were shepherds marking their sheep. In the 1500s, according to common legend, a large deposit of graphite was discovered in England when a storm uprooted it along with a tree. The pencil has been around for ages, although you might not recognize its earlier cousins. Here’s a crash course on how the #2 pencil’s history has been written: The origin of the #2 pencil Without the #2 pencil, how would you have learned to write your name or to divide fractions? But how well do you know the trusty pencil? Have you ever wondered where it came from, or why #2 is often chosen over #1? There is a great deal of history behind the #2 pencil, including its origin, evolution, and current use. We owe a lot to pencils-especially those famous #2 yellows. ![]() ![]() Throughout the month of August, visit the Varsity Tutors blog for back-to-school advice, tips, and tricks for all ages. 24 Comments / by Staff Tags: #2, Education, graphite grades, HB, no.This post is part of our 2017 Back-to-School Series. In Japan, consumers tend to prefer softer darker leads, so an HB lead produced in Japan is generally softer and darker than an HB from European producers.įinding what works best for your own artistic and writing needs is generally a matter of personal preference and experimentation with different brands of pencils. Most pencil manufacturers set their own internal standards for graphite hardness grades and overall quality of the core, some differences are regional. Thus, a #2 or HB pencil from one brand will not necessarily leave the same mark as a #2 or HB pencil from another brand. In reality however, there is no specific industry standard for the darkness of the mark to be left within the HB or any other hardness grade scale. Generally, an HB grade about the middle of the scale is considered to be equivalent to a #2 pencil using the U.S. For example, a 4B would be softer than a 2B and a 3H harder than an H. Historically, 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! Although today most pencils using the HB system are designated by a number such as 2B, 4B or 2H to indicate the degree of hardness. The letter “F” is also used to indicate that the pencil sharpens to a fine point. Likewise, a pencil maker might use the letter “B” to designate the blackness of the pencil’s mark, indicating a softer lead. use the letter “H” to indicate a hard pencil. Most pencil manufacturers outside of the U.S. Softer pencils will dull faster than harder leads and require more frequent sharpening. As the pencil core becomes softer (through the use of lower proportions of clay) it leaves a darker mark as it deposits more graphite material on the paper. The hardness of the graphite core is often marked on the pencil - look for a number (such as “2” “2-1/2” or “3”) - and the higher the number, the harder the writing core and the lighter the mark left on the paper. How does it work, you ask? Let’s take a look.Ī pencil’s location on the HB graphite grading scale depends on the hardness of its graphite core. 2 pencil actually mean? And what do all of the “B’s,” “H’s” and “HB’s” being thrown around mean, for that matter? Well, it all has to do with the HB graphite grading scale used to classify the pencil’s graphite core. 2 pencil is the first thing that comes to mind. ![]()
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