This article is a selection from the July/August 2023 issue of Smithsonian magazine And so it steadily goes at Musgrave Pencil Company, one of the few pencil manufacturers left in the United ...

The marketing behind the yellow pencil In 1888, the Czech company Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth started making pencils using the best graphite sourced from China. To really sell themselves as the best ...

Though wooden pencil use has declined since peaking in 1966, these manufacturers' relentless pursuit of perfection created writing instruments that remain unsurpassed half a century later.

Mitsubishi Pencil Co. will buy out German high-end writing instruments maker C. Josef Lamy GmbH (Lamy) to increase its presence in the overseas upscale market. The Tokyo-based company said Feb. 29 ...