The Bottom Line: Quick facts about pencils!
The Full Story:
- Over 14-billion pencils are produced in the world every year, making it enough to circle the globe 62 times!
- A pencil can write under water, as opposed to pens they can write upside down, or in a no-gravity zone. They’ve even been used in both American and Russian space missions.
- The tradition of a yellow pencil began when the L & C Hardtmuth Company of Austria-Hungary introduced their Koh-I-Noor brand in 1890, which was named after the famous diamond. This yellow pencil was designed to be the world’s best and most expensive until other companies began to follow the trend so their products would be associated with the luxury brand.
- Thomas Edison had his pencils specially made by Eagle Pencil. The company provided Edison with each pencil being three inches long, thicker than the standard pencil with a softer graphite.
- John Steinbeck’s obsession with pencils caused to use up to 60 a day. Over 300 pencils were used to write his novel “East of Eden.”
- Pencils were produced in Europe since 1622. The U.S. first began making pencils in 1812.
- For the record, 75% of all pencils are yellow.
- Francis Scott Key originally wrote “The Star Spangled Banner” in pencil.
- A decent sized tree can produce about 300,000 pencils.
- According to net, one million pencils are used annually on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.