What’s new

a reverse chronological history of Leadholder

Added a Bruning 83-403 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a variant of the Bruning 83-410 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added U.S. Patent 3,627,434 “Mechanical Pencil for Fine Leads” to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added Great Britain Patent 383,330 “An Improved Process for the Production of Writing and Drawing Leads” to the Patents Gallery.

Added U.S. Patent 2,167,465 “Pencil” which may be the first patent for a movable lead degree indicator to the Patents Gallery.

Added a Koh-I-Noor Very-Fine 5619 to the Thin Lead Leadholder Gallery. And lemme tell ya. This bitch is so verrry-fiiine!

At long last added a Pentel PG4 to the Thin Lead Leadholder Gallery. I bought this (and almost all of the thin lead pencils I’ve added in the last year) from my pal Andrey’s eBay shop.

I have given the sadly neglected Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery a shot in the arm with an overhaul of the Eberhard Faber Van Dyke / Microtomic page:

Eberhard Faber pre-Microtomic Van Dyke 600

Eberhard Faber Van Dyke 600 with metal cap

Eberhard Faber Microtomic Van Dyke 600 box

Eberhard Faber Microtomic 603 with gold accents and box

Eberhard Faber Microtomic 603 box

Eberhard Faber Microtomic Microlar for Drafting on Plastic Film

I have added a few interesting examples of Staedtler Mars wood cased drafting pencils such as:

A rare pre-Lumograph example of the J.S. Staedtler Mars 1225 to the Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery.



Two boxes for later Mars-Lumograph pencils has also been added to the same page.

Added a previously unknown style of Staedtler pencil that has both the Mars head and the moon logo. It happens to be a Mars-Duralar 2830 for drafting on film and it is unknown to me if this graphic configuration appeared on any other models.

Added a previously unknown model of Staedtler pencil, the Mars-Duragraph 2825. I have seen a fair number of Staedtler Duralar pencils and certainly plenty of Dynagraph pencils, but the Duragraph is a new one to me. And, interestingly, it would seem to predate the Duralar unless it was produced concurrently with that model.

Added a Dietzgen Designo 3139 to the Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery.

Added several examples of Alvin leads to the Drawing Lead Gallery.

Another major redesign here at the ol’ Leadholder. What’s that you say? I left the “dot com” off Leadholder? My, how perceptive of you. The official name of this website is no longer Leadholder.com, but just Leadholder. Well, with the tag line it’s actually Leadholder, the online drafting pencil museum.

The impetus behind the redesign is Google. Their web indexing algorithms now dictate how websites need to be structured to ensure surfers can find stuff. It used to be the presumed ultimate goal of Google was to index everything on the web. An impossible task of course, but for us website maintainers we could safely assume that eventually all the content of our sites would be searchable. Not any more. Google now has a “Supplemental Index” consisting of pages which as far as I can tell are not indexed at all. The upshot of this change really will mean that only sites that pay Google will be fully indexed.

Anyway, to kick off the new Leadholder website I've added a fairly thorough set of pages documenting an unusual pencil that heretofore had no mention anywhere on the site: The Haack Sparstift.

Added several variations of the unique Haack Sparstift to the Non-Drafting Leadholder Gallery, courtesy Allan Macdonald.

And some Haack Lead to the Drawing Lead Gallery

Added Great Britain Patent 382,121 for the Haack Sparstift to the Leadholder Patents Gallery.

Added a box of Keuffel & Esser Paragon 3325 Leads to the Drawing Lead Gallery courtesy Robert Pilla.

Added two examples of the L&C Hardtmuth / Koh-I-Noor 5648 to the Non-Drafting Leadholder Gallery courtesy Camilo Puyal.

Added the abominable Staedtler 980 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Japan-a-rama-lama-ding-dong Days^®©™ have gone away!

Added a Swiss Fixpencil Stamp to the Art of the Leadholder Gallery.

Added an older (and better) Bohemia Works Toison d’Or to the Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery.

Added a B. K. Elliott “Electric” Drawing Pencil to the Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery.

Added a few varieties of the Eagle “Draughting” pencil to the Wood Cased Drafting Pencil Gallery.

Japan-a-rama-lama-ding-dong Days^®©™ just won’t go away!

Added a Pentel “Cacography” PG2003 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel PH 158 to the Non-Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added an Uchida Drawing Sharp “D” to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Japan-a-rama-lama-ding-dong Days^®©™ are here!*

Added a Pentel PSD5 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel Sharp for Film PF335 & PF339 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel Sliding Sleeve Sharp PS315 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added an complete set of Pentel PG500 Graphlets to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel PG514 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel PG1004 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

*pat. pend.

Added a Faber-Castell TK-Fine L to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Pentel 350 E and 9500 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added the Staedtler Marstechno 770 and Marsmicro 770 to the Thin Lead Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added the rotring 1305 and 1310 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery. And added the U.S. patent that covers the model 1305, 3,523,741.

Added an adorable little Caran d’Ache Fixpencil 23 to the Non-Drafting Leadholder Gallery courtesy Allan Macdonald.

Added an “Educator” variant of the Koh-I-Noor 5612 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added an Ecobra 836601 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added an Ecobra 836703 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Added a variant of the Lyra 6316 to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery courtesy Andrey Gordenco.

Updated the Tecnograph exhibit in the Drafting Leadholder Gallery with new images courtesy Luca Panaro.

Added a box of Dietzgen Designo Leads to the Drawing Lead Gallery.

Added an unusual box of A.W. Faber Drawing Leads to the Drawing Lead Gallery.

Added a glass tube of A.W. Faber Castell TK 9070 short leads to the Drawing Lead Gallery.

Added a short clip from the Italian feature film Allegro non Troppo to the Art of the Leadholder Gallery.

Added a Leadmaster to the Drafting Leadholder Gallery.

Up until today, I have not accepted advertisements on Leadholder.com, and as a rule I still don’t, but because my pal Andrey Gordenco of Andrey’s Pencils specializes in exactly that which my website is all about, drafting pencils, I have made a deal with him. Andrey is a dealer located in Russia specializing in mechanical drafting pencils. He operates a mail order business through eBay Shops which is stocked with all manner of wonderful items you can’t get in the U.S., especially Japanese pencils.

Take a look at his shop. His international shipping rates are reasonable and he is much more reliable and professional than I am.


Added a 1955 Defiance Sales Corp. catalog to the Vintage Catalog Gallery, courtesy Allan Macdonald.

What’s new