Carbon battery core pencil

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

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.

 

[willong]

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?

 

[hemihampton]

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.

 

[Mailman1960]

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???

 

[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?

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.

 

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

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.

 

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

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

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

 

[Mailman1960]

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

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

 

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

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.

 

[willong]

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.)