I have always been curious why early Staedtler leadholders have left-handed markings. They seem to have changed to the more conventional right-handed markings at some point - not sure exactly when that happened.
All the other pencils and leadholders in my collection have right-handed markings. Are there other brands that went against convention?
These are beautiful leadholders!
I once learnt from Staedtler that the direction of the lettering was reversed in 1963. However, the changeover from four-digit to three-digit article numbers took place in 1969, so that there should actually be no pencil with the so-called left-handed labelling and a three-digit article number (like the third one).
I have still not been able to solve this puzzle, nor do I know why the company opted for this unusual type of labelling at the time. Did they want someone else to be able to read the labelling when a right-handed person used the pencil?
By the way, the shape of the Mars head on the first leadholder was used von 1963 to 1967. The quarter moon which can be seen on the last leadholder was registered as a trademark in 1887. It’s one of the oldest trademarks in the pencil world and was used until the early 1960s.
Beautiful stuff, thanks for sharing.
signed,
A lefto
Funny enough the grade window in the 3rd from the top is positioned for the right hand 
Thank you Gunther for your detailed reply! The information about which logo was used when was very interesting. I notice that they shortened the name from “J. S. Staedtler Mars Lumograph Technico” as the years went on - hard to fit all that on the shorter leadholders.
I had never considered that the labeling was oriented for someone other than the user - kind of like the orientation of logos on the laptop computers. But who knows what the real reason is - maybe there was a left-handed person in charge at Staedtler.
Ulfesharpe - I agree that it is curious that the lead hardness indicator doesn’t match the other labeling. I double checked to see if that was a separate part that could be reoriented by the user, but it did not look like it came apart easily.
Don’t worry — it’s great as it is. If I was a smarter person I’d only collect LH 2mm Staedtlers.
