History of the pencil
The origin of the pencil has been traced back to 1564. According to legend, a great storm in the English village of Borrowdale brought down an enormous tree. A completely unknown black substance was found in the ground where the trees roots once were, and the local farmers began using it to mark their sheep. The local merchants began to sell sticks of this black lead, the purest in the world, in shops in London. The problem was that the substance stained the fingers, so a cord was wrapped around the lead stick, which was removed as the stick was used. The pencil was born. But it was not until 1760 that it began taking on the shape known to us today. Its invention was the work of Kaspar Faber, a German craftsman from Baviera who mixed graphite with sulphur powder, antimony and resin to come up with a mixture that, once shaped into a sticks, was far firmer than pure graphite. Thirty years later, the French chemist Jacques Cont� created for the first time, graphite rods made of graphite mixed with clay and cooked in ceramic recipients. In 1812, the American William Monroe invented the pencil manufacturing process that is still used and which consists of casing the graphite stick in two pieces of cedar wood.

Collection criteria
From this moment on, several chemists and carpenters have participated in the design and manufacture of millions of pencils of varying qualities, shapes and designs. As a result, thousands of people have been collecting a number of these utensils over the past couple of centuries. The countries with the greatest number of collectors are the U.S.� and the UK, which are also the major manufacturers of pencils. It should be borne in mind that there are over 14,000 million pencils in the world. Placed end to end, they would circle the world 62 times. Additionally, there are currently 300 different types of pencil.

As in all collections, each aficionado follows his own criteria. However, some of the most common criteria in these types of collections, which often number several thousand units, are as follows:
- Shape. The most common is the rounded shape, which is considered the simplest and easiest to manufacture. Nevertheless, the most common way of� cutting graphite is in rectangular bars. The combination of both led to hexagonal pencils. There are also triangular variations which some people find more comfortable to use.
- With rubber. One the main features of graphite is the ease with which it can be removed. Which is why a rubber was placed at the end of the pencil to ease this task.
- With toy. In many cases, a toy replaces the rubber at the end of the pencil, varying in colour, design or theme. You can find classic cartoon characters, or replicas of houses, motorbikes and animals, for example.
- Decoration. Some pencils are decorated with the most varied themes: flowers, cars and geometric designs, among others.
- Colour. Not the most common collection criteria, but some collectors aim to gather the widest variety of colours available.
- Size. The normal size of a pencil is usually that of a palm. But far larger and thicker pencils are sometimes manufactured. Selecting them according to their size and thickness is another oft-employed criteria.