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Rare WWII Camp Toccoa Airborne Mechanical Pencil


APO472
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Something one does not see every day. Original, WWII Mechanical pencil as available at the PX in 1942. Made from bakelite plastic and printed with "US Paratroops logo & Camp Toccoa. I 30+ years of researching the 506th I have only encountered 2 of these. They are RARE! Hope you enjoy! Thanks for looking.

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Jake,

 

Cool piece! I have only ever seen one other of these and it is in a guy's pencil collection. No amount of trying to trade for it would get it away from him.

 

I hope you're doing OK!

 

Allan

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Thanks everyone for the kind comments. I would venture to guess that so few exist because they were probably a fairly expensive item at the time since they were mechanical pencils. A pennent or even stationary would have been much cheaper. Thanks again!

 

Allan, PM sent.

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I had not thought of the novelty that would have been a mechanical pencil in the 1940s, but figured that it would have been the type of item that was used until it broke or was lost. Such a unique item - Thanks for letting us see it!

 

Kyle

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Back when you had a better chance to finding stuff like this in the early 90s when GI stuff wasn't that big a collecting thing, I wouldn't have given this a second glance then as the design and typeface on the pencil looks way too modern for the WW2 area.

Not saying it's repro or from the pstwar era, just saying I would have probably thought that way back then, and can easily imagine passing over something like this, incorrectly thinking it was a veteran item or something like that...

Great item, Jake!

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I did a little research and the mechanical pencil was first invented in the 1800's. And they have a page in lead for these in GI collectors guide vol. 2.

here is a picture of a WWII led box. post-151093-0-37829300-1416861036.jpg

 

-Dave

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