# Carbon battery core pencil



## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Feb 28, 2022)

I found this the other day. I have hear of people in the old times using a carbon core for a pencil before, but this is the first one I have discovered.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## willong (Feb 28, 2022)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I found this the other day. I have hear of people in the old times using a carbon core for a pencil before, but this is the first one I have discovered.
> ROBBYBOBBY64.


How do you determine that is what the item is as opposed to a carbon arc electrode as used in electrical lighting that predated incandescent (Edison) lamps and were later used in aerial searchlights?


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## hemihampton (Feb 28, 2022)

I find these all the time in different dumps, one dump is full of them, but never found any with a point, would seem pretty big for a pencil, have found much smaller ones that were pencils. LEON.


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## Mailman1960 (Feb 28, 2022)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I found this the other day. I have hear of people in the old times using a carbon core for a pencil before, but this is the first one I have discovered.
> ROBBYBOBBY64.


Well are you just going to leave us hanging???


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 1, 2022)

willong said:


> How do you determine that is what the item is as opposed to a carbon arc electrode as used in electrical lighting that predated incandescent (Edison) lamps and were later used in aerial searchlights?
> 
> View attachment 235145


These are a lot bigger than what you have in the picture. Size is 6 inches long by an inch wide. I have asked the community before and they all agree they find loads of them. They said car battery core. One even mentioned antique telephone battery. Either way this has a wire of some kind stuck in one end. Does not go thru.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 1, 2022)

hemihampton said:


> I find these all the time in different dumps, one dump is full of them, but never found any with a point, would seem pretty big for a pencil, have found much smaller ones that were pencils. LEON.


This is the first like this I have found. They did alot of stone work in the area...lots! In the 1930's it was booming. I figure it is most likely from then. It would have working great for marking big blocks of stone.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 1, 2022)

Mailman1960 said:


> Well are you just going to leave us hanging???


Nope, just got bigger problems. No biggie.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## Mailman1960 (Mar 1, 2022)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> Nope, just got bigger problems. No biggie.
> ROBBYBOBBY64.


Dip in some plastic coat, you have a pencil for life and your grandkids.


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 1, 2022)

Mailman1960 said:


> Dip in some plastic coat, you have a pencil for life and your grandkids.


I have 2 i was thinking about keeping to use as a Carpenters pencil.
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## willong (Mar 1, 2022)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> These are a lot bigger than what you have in the picture. Size is 6 inches long by an inch wide. I have asked the community before and they all agree they find loads of them. They said car battery core. One even mentioned antique telephone battery. Either way this has a wire of some kind stuck in one end. Does not go thru.
> ROBBYBOBBY64.


The picture I posted is merely representational of carbon arc lighting in general and wasn't meant to suggest the specific application of the rods that you found. I suspect that WW2 vintage searchlights probably used electrodes about the diameter of your battery cores. For what it's worth, I have uncovered large dry-cell batteries in 1930's era trash too, though I always thought they were either for telephones or radios. I remember one small dump in particular because it was the first place that I found embossed whiskey bottles, albeit machine made ones, after I began deliberately hunting bottles. (A chance encounter was my first find.)


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