In spite of the consumer love affair with high-tech tablets and other digital devices, people are still enthusiastic about making their mark using low-tech, graphite-lead pencils. That gave pencil ...

On March 30, 1858, inventor Hymen L. Lipman patented the first pencil with a built-in eraser—then sold it for $100,000. Believe it or not, this is not the first time in history that a little stick of ...

1. There is no risk of lead poisoning if you stab yourself (or someone else) with a pencil because it contains no lead — just a mixture of clay and graphite. Still, pencil wounds carry a risk of ...

Save this article to read it later. Find this story in your account’s ‘Saved for Later’ section. Because they are erasable, pencils are often the first tool creative people use when sketching out a ...

As a new middle-school teacher, I’m facing a challenge I never thought about before: assigning a list of school supplies for my students. My colleagues tell me that there’s a real downside to wooden ...

People who write notes in ink must be very sure of their thoughts. I write notes in pencil: It seems more polite. Penciled notes are always provisional and erasable. But the apparent humility—or, ...