If you know about 19th century props?

Question

I am trying to figure out if I can put a charcoal pencil in someone's desk in a play set in 1897. I found out mass-manufactured yellow pencils came out around 1875, but this play is set in the West (northern Utah) where I assume people would not necessarily get rid of older pencils right away. The character in the play is well-off financially and has a silver desk set on his desk as well, and modern pencils would be okay to include. I need the softer charcoal pencil for a plot point. What do you think?

Answer 1

My understanding is that pencils used graphite (what we use today) from a nuch earlier time than that (1560 and on) although different graphite mixtures were employed. Mass-produced manufactured pencils were launched in earnest as far as the US is concerned post-Civil War, 1865-ish, but graphite was in use before then.

So I'd say if you are trying to guess whether or not a pencil used by a wealthy man in northern Utah in 1897 would use charcoal, the answer is "No." But of course what you are doing is writing a fiction, and you can bend your created world as you wish -- make up a historically-viable excuse (an artist would use charcoal) or find a way to have the plot point turn on something else (charcoal from elsewhere, or something not charcoal) or just change the world a bit -- in your fictional world, this guy got his pencils made of charcoal.

Good luck.

Answer 2

I personally do not know - but why don't you check the charcoal pencil web site and it should tell you!@