Who invented pencils with erasers

Actually, Lipman was not the only person to think of bringing pencil and eraser together. Hence it was Reckendorfer who, a decade later, took the A. Faber company to court on grounds of patent infringement.

In , the case reached the U. The invalidation of the patent left the field open to anyone who wanted to make a pencil with an eraser at its end. And in fact, by the early 20th century, most pencils produced in America were so equipped. In the case of the postcard, it was another Philadelphia, named John P. Charlton, who patented that, in , and Lipman who bought the rights to produce it.

Lipman was, to be sure, the type of figure that any Jewish parent could happily see his child emulate — but was he Jewish? He died on November 4, , she a year later. They were susceptible, like all bread, to mold and rot. Talk about a kneaded eraser. The same guy who discovered oxygen helped to invent erasers. In , the natural philosopher and theologian Joseph Priestley —discoverer of oxygen and, with it, the carbonated liquid we now know as soda water— described "a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil.

Erasers were invented by accident. Though Joseph Priestly may have discovered rubber's erasing properties, it's the British engineer Edward Nairne who is generally credited with developing and marketing the first rubber eraser in Europe.

And Nairne claimed to have come upon his invention accidentally: He inadvertently picked up a piece of rubber instead of breadcrumbs, he said, thereby realizing rubber's erasing properties. It was Priestley who is generally credited for naming rubber.

The erasing "substance" he described in —initially referred to as "India gum"—required, he remarked, rubbing action on the part of the user. Thus, yep, a "rubber. In Britain, erasers themselves are still often called "rubbers. Erasers don't just work manually; they work chemically.

Pencils work because, when they are put to paper, their graphite mingles with the fiber particles that comprise the paper. And erasers work, in turn, because the polymers that make them up are stickier than the particles of paper—so graphite particles end up getting stuck to the eraser instead.

They're almost like sticky magnets. Over the years, many of our most creative people have relied on the pencil. And despite all the electronic note-taking gadgets at our disposal these days, the pencil still has its loyal users, including David Rees, the professional pencil sharpener our Mo Rocca watched at work back in :. It's a day for pencil lovers to consider its many uses, including a sporting one discovered by Yahoo. When that website asked the question, "What's the best way to lower my golf score?