A ‘copying pencil’ was a special type on pencil with a dye in the graphite core. Write with it, then moisten the result, and you could make a copy of the text on tissue paper held against it. Remarkably the firm who made it, Hardtmuth, are still going after 230 years or more. Founded in Austria, they set up all over the world to make their products, and are now based in Croatia. Copying pencils stopped being sold in the 1960s.

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Keywords: 1940s, copying, design, mephisto, packaging, pencils, reprographic, retro, vintage, writing