I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on something related. My cousin found a mechanical pencil (in my recently deceased uncles desk) with my late father's name on

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on something related. My cousin found a mechanical pencil (in my recently deceased uncles desk) with my late father's name on it. My father's been gone for nearly 60 years so this pencil went way back. I managed to make out some writing on the cap so I took a picture of it (my method of magnifying things otherwise too small to identify) and made out the brand "Autopoint." I did a little digging along the way and discovered that Autopoint was owned by Bakelite and indeed, it looks like the barrel of the pencil is made from Bakelite. I also read that Autopoint used to make promotional items. Since my father was working as an engineer at a manufacturer that probably used Bakelite in some of their products, I speculate that this was a promotional item that Autopoint provided to engineers (and probably buyers) at the company to pump their product. (We also got tubular collapsing fiberglass fishing poles since they used fiberglass tubes for some of their products.) Along the way I discovered that there is a Reddit devoted to mechanical pencils and they were happy to hear this story. And even happier to see that the pencil was well used.