Vintage Catalogs

Here you will find images of pages from catalogs containing drafting pencils and related items. Drafting equipment catalogs are the most valuable historical record of available instruments at the time of printing. The catalog images available at Leadholder depict pencils from the late 19th century through the entirety of the 20th century. Items shown in the catalogs that have corresponding entries in the Image Galleries have been cross-referenced to those Gallery entries—just click on any catalog images that bring up the pointing finger cursor when hovered over.

When I began acquiring catalogs as a way to discover which drafting pencils were available during what periods, I took the information in them, including images, as gospel. I've since realized that the engraved images of specific pencil models in the catalogs were expensive to produce and so were reused long after the details of a particular model had changed. Because of this, using general drafting tool catalogs alone as a method of establishing the date of introduction for a new model is risky. The best you can do is to establish a first reference which tells you that the pencil was first introduced no later than the depiction in the catalog.

If you are interested in additional pages of the catalogs shown or higher resolution images or photocopies, email me and I'll see what I can do. Not all of the catalogs belong to me though, so I may or may not be able to provide you with copies.