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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Good Old Days

These days leads come in plastic. I'm far too young to have been around then, but back in the good old days, when life was slower and simpler, before everything came in plastic, lead refills came in...well...lots of different things.

Like glass tubes with stoppers.



Conway Stewart and Eversharp glass tubes - note the square leads.
Also there were all sorts of metal and wood tubes and containers.

Various metal tubes and containers

Special leads in heavy duty metal containers
Of course the claim of extra thin would be laughed at today. More like "thick for strength".

Moving on we have a variety of wooden tubes and containers

I really like these slotted wooden type holders.


Scripto's in wooden holders


0.036" = 0.9mm = 'Extra Thin Lead'
Wooden tubes for politicians?
Of course there were also just plain old cardboard boxes

and of course cardboard tubes
Gonna get that Road Runner

15 comments:

  1. This is awesome, Dave. Thanks for posting.

    Please do more vintage stuff, if at all possible. I love it!

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  2. Absolutely marvelous – thank you for showing these gems!

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  3. They are really beautiful! I wish some manufacturers would offer retro lead containers.

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  4. Lovely stuff. Of the modern variety I love the Faber-Castell containers.

    2 1/2p

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  5. Autopoint Corporation leads still come in cardboard tubes.

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  6. What a cool post Dave - love seeing all of the vintage stuff!

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  7. Very nifty. I would like to see more vintage stuff too. Love your blog.

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  8. Trouble is I do remember buying leads for Parker No8 Rotary Pencil in glass tubes with rubber stoppers.
    I always wondered why they didn't make the stopper the right size to replace the eraser.

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  9. I really enjoyed this glimpse at the past. Just recycled a plastic lead container yesterday.

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  10. Love the old wooden holders! The old colored leads are getting difficult to find, too. I enjoy using the color leads in the field for map making. The hard Pentel colored leads were good, even in damp conditions.

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  11. Very cool post! I did not realize the extent and variety of vintage lead tubes. Tend to pick up just the 2 mm leads variety myself thus far. Really like the wooden trays used by Staedtler for theirs back in the mid XX century.

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  12. great post! loved the glass tubes!

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  13. Great post! Nice to see stuff from the less hectic past.

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  14. I think i have seen some of these b4. I wonder where... Nice pics and content.

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