Just got the final shipment of vintage leads I was expecting.
A lot of vintage leads can be a bit of a surprise box, for example this bunch of 1 mm colored leads was stuffed within the the
Staedtler Mars Lumograph 2 mm
H box along with some
2H and
4H leads.
And no there was not a single
H lead in that package. Not that I am complaining, for I really enjoy the graphics used on the vintage paperboard sleeves.
Vintage box for 12 and 6 leads side by side.
Eberhard Faber Microtomic “Van Dyke” Drawing Leads 6100 box from the 1930s-1940s. Originally it held
H leads, but this one arrived with a
2H lead and a couple of leads from other brands.
Back of the box.
Vintage lead packaging:
Eberhard Faber Microtomic “Van Dyke” Drawing Leads 6100,
Venus Refill Leads 842, and
Venus Drawing leads H &
HB boxes.
The graphics-rich packaging and wooden trays used by the
Venus Pencil co. in the 1940s looked much better and sturdier than the plain white paperboard shells with a minimalist green logo used a decade later.
The earlier version of the wooden core looks like it was made by joining two
grooved pencil slats together.
The wooden cores from 1955 and 1956 seemed brittler than the wooden trays used on earlier packaging, for their exterior walls tended to crumble and break off rather easily and consisted of a single grooved slat.
Thus while I have no qualms about using vintage
drafting graphite leads, I suspect vintage wooden pencils could be a bit more of a gamble if they were not properly stored. Wood can be rather susceptible to water damage and might grow brittle under excessive dry conditions. As much as I like the wooden trays of old, it is easy to understand why modern packaging was switched to more stable plastic boxes.
These
HB drafting leads looked ready for use upon close inspection.
Yup, the drawing leads worked just fine despite been over half a century old. And that concludes our coverage of vintage leads for the foreseeable future.
Just got the final shipment of vintage leads I was expecting.
A lot of vintage leads can be a bit of a surprise box, for example this bunch of 1 mm colored leads was stuffed within the the Staedtler Mars Lumograph 2 mm H box along with some 2H and 4H leads.
And no there was not a single H lead in that package. Not that I am complaining, for I really enjoy the graphics used on the vintage paperboard sleeves.
Vintage box for 12 and 6 leads side by side.
Eberhard Faber Microtomic “Van Dyke” Drawing Leads 6100 box from the 1930s-1940s. Originally it held H leads, but this one arrived with a 2H lead and a couple of leads from other brands.
Back of the box.
Vintage lead packaging: Eberhard Faber Microtomic “Van Dyke” Drawing Leads 6100, Venus Refill Leads 842, and Venus Drawing leads H & HB boxes.
The graphics-rich packaging and wooden trays used by the Venus Pencil co. in the 1940s looked much better and sturdier than the plain white paperboard shells with a minimalist green logo used a decade later.
The earlier version of the wooden core looks like it was made by joining two grooved pencil slats together.
The wooden cores from 1955 and 1956 seemed brittler than the wooden trays used on earlier packaging, for their exterior walls tended to crumble and break off rather easily and consisted of a single grooved slat.
Thus while I have no qualms about using vintage drafting graphite leads, I suspect vintage wooden pencils could be a bit more of a gamble if they were not properly stored. Wood can be rather susceptible to water damage and might grow brittle under excessive dry conditions. As much as I like the wooden trays of old, it is easy to understand why modern packaging was switched to more stable plastic boxes.
These HB drafting leads looked ready for use upon close inspection.
Yup, the drawing leads worked just fine despite been over half a century old. And that concludes our coverage of vintage leads for the foreseeable future.
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