From deep inside the pencil talk vaults, the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Duralar.
The box shows many signs of age. The half gross of 2830 pencils are in the K3 grade.
Despite many advancements in the ability to render images, modern graphics are less detailed than this 20th century beauty:
The box has some printed material:
No complaints necessary! We love these pencils.
Also an ad for a sharpener:
Unfortunately an overhead tree took away some of the focus:
The gold trim is very nice:
Nice lettering:
The insert is beautiful, and could probably be made into an excellent bookmark if printed on heavier paper:
The bottom piece of paper has tables of pencil grade recommendations:
Great to find such hidden treasure way down the back of the vault. I see what you mean about the insert, it looks fantastic.
Great find and post indeed! What’s a K3 grade?
Fabulous – you could sell tickets just to see these.
I love the translation on the advert “prevents squandering of material” is just priceless.
I wonder what happened to ExExB and ExB grades.
This is a pencil intended for use on drafting film. Each manufacturer seems to have used their own prefix letter – E, K, S, N, etc. in combination with a numeral for this pencil type. K3 is in the middle of Staedtler’s K1 … K5 range, with K1 being the softest. Some claim K1 is equivalent to an F.
And see here for a little more on EE (and related) grade pencils:
https://www.penciltalk.org/tag/ee-pencil
Very exciting – thank you for sharing these photos!