Episode 237: Pencil Primer, Part 1

Engraved portrait of Nicolas-Jacques Conté, a man in late 18th-century dress wearing a dark coat, white cravat, and a star-shaped medal, with a black eyepatch across his upper face and curly hair

Nicolas-Jacques Conté, a French inventor and polymath, best known for inventing the modern graphite pencil in 1795.

We kick off the Pencil Primer — a new series for anyone who wants to start at the beginning of pencildom. This installment traces graphite from the legendary Borrowdale lightning strike of 1564 to Nicolas-Jacques Conté's clay-and-graphite breakthrough during the Napoleonic Wars, plus the Thoreau family's role in standardizing the American pencil grade scale and a tour through HB-to-9B. Plus, Tim's into a Bill Frisell biography, Johnny's writing with a sparkly Narwhal "raspberry cheesecake" pen that looks like, uh, something else, and Andy debuts booklet.lol — a vibe-coded book tracker. Patreon subscribers can watch the video version.

For this episode, we recorded video, available to Patreon subscribers! If you’re a patron, head over to see our faces and visual examples of many of the things we discuss. And if you’re not a patron, join us at any level and you can see this and other supplemental content at any time!

Your Hosts

Johnny  Gamber
Pencil Revolution
@pencilution

Andy Welfle
Woodclinched
@awelfle

Tim Wasem
@TimWasem