A Croatian museum on Wednesday displayed the world’s first mechanical pencil, marking the 100th anniversary of its invention by a Croat.



Slavoljub Penkala’s mechanical pencil – which uses a mechanism to push a long lead refill – received the patent as the first such pencil in the world in 1906.
The registration document praised it as a pencil that “needs no sharpening and with which we can write continually.”
The pencil, called Penkala, “was one of the first and perhaps the most important patent among the writing instruments of the 20th century,” said Miroslav Tischler, a collector and expert on pencils and pens.
“It was extremely popular in the whole first half of the 20th century,” especially in Italy and Germany, he added.
Miljenko Paunovic, an expert from the Technical Museum, which displayed the original pencil, said Penkala’s invention “definitely changed the world in a way” becoming “an indispensable item for every person which knew how to read and write.”
Penkala was born in Slovakia but lived and worked in Croatia until his 1922 death. His pen factory, which employed 800 people, exported pencils and pens across the world. His influence in Croatia was so great that many here still refer to any pen or pencil as “penkala.” AP