Pencil Leads

Pencil Leads

ALL about Vintage Mechanical Pencils.

Refilling your
Vintage Mechanical Pencils

Most mechanical pencils made before the late 1960s and some even after that are refilled by feeding lead in from the Point End. Those that feed from the barrel (below the eraser) are a fairly modern invention! Don't be fooled by leads in the barrel, in older pencils, that was simply a space to store a few extra leads, but that's it - just storage. As always with vintage writing instruments, exceptions will crop up!
The instruction below are from a Sheaffer package insert, but apply to most older mechanical pencils.