I won’t be lead to believe it.
Staedtler ftw
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You may actually have answered my “What pencils were they back in the day?” query with that! Oh, the relief…
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They were the maroon ones back then, but maroon seems to be the colour for their pastel pencils now.
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The pencils I learned to write with also had an Indian name:
As did the writing pads:
(Is it just me, or is the latter - still on the market - a little bit racist?
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I don’t necessarily see it as racist, the chief isn’t being depicted as a caricature. It’s a chief on a horse. Likewise if this was called Big Samurai and it was similar, a mounted samurai i wouldn’t think there was something suspect about it. But i say this as someone that isn’t native American so take what i say with a grain of salt, it’s just my observation and others might have a different take on the imagery being used.
Alternatively the use of chiefs to sell cigars i have a problem with. Native Americans smoked for ceremonial purposes and that imagery was co-opted to make a profit with cigars and cigarettes. I don’t know, would be interested to hear other people’s take on these images being used (the pencil tablet Big Chief vs the cigar store indian)
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Fountain pens or die!
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You know its going to end in a draw.
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when I was learning to do internets about the time winNT
was on the machine shop floor
for good reason (I don’t know?) I drew a pencil and coloured
it yellow…
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I think it is a finely shaded argument.
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But it is a very fine line.
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Yes, you’ve outlined your position and filled in the detail very sharply. To be blunt I think your grip on it is good, but it needs blocking in a bit more in some places and perhaps shaving a little here and there to sharpen it up.
But we can all draw our own conclusions.
(I’ll get my coat.)
ETA - sorry I didn’t get to the point quicker.
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I think it’s best we just draw a line under it and move on.
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I fully agree.
We wouldn’t want to colour anyone else’s opinion of us any further.
Over and out.
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I knew Koh-i-Noor from half-a-dozen Indian restaurants named after it before I heard of the diamond 
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The story is more interesting, a major natural source for graphite prior to the one on the China/Russia borderlands was Cumbria in England. Graphite was used for several things including as a release agent for cannonball casting. It became such an important resource that its export was restricted and the Crown took control of the source. Various wars led to the British halting export to several countries (including France and USA) which led to searching for more sources of graphite outside the empire.
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So much so, that they have a Pencil Museum
Derwent Pencil Museum
Welcome to the Derwent Pencil Museum: home of the world’s first pencil!
Located in Keswick, the home of the first pencil, visitors enter this museum through a replica graphite mine which would have served as the source of the pencil industry over three centuries ago. A journey of graphite and pencil discovery from its humble beginnings as a cottage industry to modern day production.
And I’ve been there! (It was about 20 years ago, though.)
(And @anon73430903 seeing as you grew up with Derwent Cumberland pencils.)
Oh - and parts of the Wikipedia entry make slightly sad reading.
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Man, I gotta get in on these puns.
You heard about the constipated mathematician? He worked everything out with a pencil!
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It’s not totally clear from the excerpt, although the full article does note it: The story of the yellow Koh-I-Noor pencils comes from The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. I’ve read a few of the author’s books and I think this was my favorite. It’s about pencils, sure, but it’s at least as much about the way geography, technology, and business interact with each other.
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