Mine don’t have lead grades either. I don’t have any TK boxes. Perhaps they would have included hardness indicator stickers?
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Yeah, I don’t have any boxes or stickers either.
It wouldn’t be difficult to make some with a labelmaker and a hollow punch of the right diameter, if so desired. I don’t especially desire but I might try it out of curiosity now that I thought of it. I’ll report back if I do.
Does anyone here have a vintage US spec Faber Castell catalog from the 1970’s or 1980’s? I’m really curious to know what the original list prices were. I’d seen only the TK-matic in green in a store as a teenager and I just can’t remember what was the stickered price. The only memory I do have is that it was very expensive relative to other drafting pencils, like the rOtring 600.
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Thank you, Heath. So from DM 17 to DM 25… that’s about a 50% increase. Found a lucky photo, by chance. Judging from the price sticker design, it looks to be somewhere in the mid to late 1970’s. $35 USD… which is probably about right given the DM pricing, plus the factor of import costs and distributor markups.
Assuming that was 1977, the equivalent price today would be about $180 USD.
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Wow! From DM45 in 1980 to DM25 in 1984… power of mass production!
No, wait I got it wrong.
1979 - DM25
1980 - DM45 !!!
What happened? The Oil Crisis?
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Probably Rotring happened 