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This article reminded me of another great website which sadly has been offline for several years now. Thankfully it seems to be pretty well archived. Leadholde

by ics 2y ago

This article reminded me of another great website which sadly has been offline for several years now. Thankfully it seems to be pretty well archived. Leadholder - The Drafting Pencil Museum: https://web.archive.org/web/20170617140127/http://leadholder.com/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20170617140127/http://leadholder... Example: https://web.archive.org/web/20160629142925/http://leadholder.com/lh-draft-cda-fixpencil.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160629142925/http://leadholder...

gwern 2y ago
One interesting thing about your archive is that I notice the site got hacked and used to distribute spam. The line " A special shout to our limo service San Diego for that one! " is a spammer insertion in https://web.archive.org/web/20170430095756/http://www.leadholder.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170430095756/http://www.leadho... which makes no sense, and indeed, if you jump back over the gap of a few months to https://web.archive.org/web/20170121041802/http://www.leadholder.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170121041802/http://www.leadho... , it was the much more logical in context " For collectors it doesn’t take long to fill out your collection of them with..." preface. I wonder if it went offline because they couldn't deal with the security and maintenance?
- ics 2y ago
  Interesting, I hadn't noticed that! While responding to your comment I searched again and found a clue that they lived in Ann Arbor, MI, which then surfaced an obituary for Dennis B. Smith who certainly sounds like the author. https://www.familylifefh.com/obituaries/Dennis-Smith-62/#!/Obituary https://www.familylifefh.com/obituaries/Dennis-Smith-62/#!/O... I wish I had found them sooner to express thanks. If it's possible to reach their family I'd still like to revive the site another way; for a drafting junkie it really was one of the best things on the web.

by ics 2y ago

gwern 2y ago

One interesting thing about your archive is that I notice the site got hacked and used to distribute spam. The line " A special shout to our limo service San Diego for that one! " is a spammer insertion in https://web.archive.org/web/20170430095756/http://www.leadholder.com:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170430095756/http://www.leadho... which makes no sense, and indeed, if you jump back over the gap of a few months to https://web.archive.org/web/20170121041802/http://www.leadholder.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170121041802/http://www.leadho... , it was the much more logical in context " For collectors it doesn’t take long to fill out your collection of them with..." preface. I wonder if it went offline because they couldn't deal with the security and maintenance?

ics 2y ago
Interesting, I hadn't noticed that! While responding to your comment I searched again and found a clue that they lived in Ann Arbor, MI, which then surfaced an obituary for Dennis B. Smith who certainly sounds like the author. https://www.familylifefh.com/obituaries/Dennis-Smith-62/#!/Obituary https://www.familylifefh.com/obituaries/Dennis-Smith-62/#!/O... I wish I had found them sooner to express thanks. If it's possible to reach their family I'd still like to revive the site another way; for a drafting junkie it really was one of the best things on the web.