Today Mr. Pencil will talk about pencils history, which is long, and also interesting.

Stylus was the first ever item that is used as a pencil. Used in ancient Rome, a stylus was a thin metal stick that was used to scratch on papyrus. The stylus was often made of lead. That is why many people still believe that pencils are made of lead. Pencils are not made of lead they are made from graphite mixed with clay. Graphite is a form of carbon. It is a non-toxic substance found underground.

Some time before 1564, what is known as England today an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered. This deposit was extremely pure and solid allowing it to be sawed into sticks to be used. The locals found this graphite to be very useful to mark sheep with. This particular graphite deposit remains the only large-scale deposit ever found. Chemistry was brand new then and the substance was thought to be a form of lead. It was consequently called plumbago, which is Latin for acts like lead. The core of pencils is still called lead even though it does not contain any of the elements.

Plumbago was soon considered valuable because it could be used to line the molds for cannon balls. The mines were then taken over by the Crown and guards were place around them. Graphite then had to be smuggled out to make pencils. Plumbago was wrapped in string or sheepskin at first because it is too soft to be easily held. These string and sheepskin wrapped graphite sticks were the first ever pencils. Soon the news of the usefulness of these sticks was known far and wide. This news attracted artists from all over the world.

The Italians were the first to use wooden holders for the graphite. They hollowed out a stick of Juniper wood and placed the graphite inside.

Although deposits of graphite were found in other parts of the world but they were not as pure in quality as the graphite found in England. The graphite from these other deposits had to be crushed to remove impurities. The first pencils made from graphite powder were in Nuremburg Germany in 1662. The mixture used graphite, sulfur and antimony. These pencils while usable were not as good as the ones made in England.

In 1795 a French chemist Nicolas Conte invented and patented the process that is used to make pencils today. A mixture of clay and graphite was placed in a kiln and fired before being put into a wooden case. The wooden case that he used was cylindrical with a slot. The graphite lead was glued into the slot and a small strip of wood was used to fill the rest of the slot. Contes way of kiln firing pencils allows them to be made in any hardness or softness needed. Adding more or less clay could vary the hardness of the graphite rod. The softer the graphite, the darker is the mark. This is very important to artists. These pencils got their name from an old English word meaning brush.

I hope you enjoy with me in this Mr. Pencil article. Please visit our website next week, we will publish new interesting  article from our Mr. Pencil.