.. it might be instructive…it sure was fun !!!
vintage martin 29 6618 2mm pencil - Google Search
(scroll up…way up….)
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I spent ages on ChatGPT then Google Gemini and now I use Claude, pretty happy with it.
Try putting your results from say Google Gemini into another AI like Claude and ask it to verify the claims made. It works pretty well.
One of the problems with Google’s AI (and others, I suspect) is that it makes stuff up or ‘confabulates’ as Claude puts it. If something is quoted eg by LSD300 in reddit then it now becomes quoatable fact by Gemini.
Here’s a response (lengthy) about Criteriums https://claude.ai/share/fa2244c9-a3fc-45b0-9e87-4350e4a96670
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Looks like Claude (and maybe Grok) are less likely to hallucinate. I’ve had so many enquiries with Chat GPT go south when it just spewed BS on topics from mechanical pencils to various movies and anime series. Disappointing and revealing. OpenAI might be in serious financial trouble soon as they couldn’t sustain their SORA video generator and subscribers leave in droves.
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So happy to see your Martin @lsd300 as I have a nice unused red one. I always thought Martin was an auto-electrician located in a country town and his phone number was 29-6618. Now I know my red Martin had at least one brother 
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Do you know if Martin made any other leadholders? When you see a number like ‘29-6618’ you tend to think it might be part of a range or one in a series. It seems unlikely Martin would manufacture one model and randomly select a number like 29-6618.
These have a nice auto-advance system with a pointer in the cool button.
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I don’t purposefully use AI and don’t really trust it much when I do Internet searches. A year ago I was looking up a Ricoh slide rule and AI said this:
I know of dozens of different Ricoh slide rules, and the one I was trying to find more information about was sitting on my lap.
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If you follow th AI thread from the top, it does indicate a maker, although I have not yet dug into that lead …. I dug up another very sinilar 2 mm repeater, but it has no markings at all, but does have a similar pointer in the cap…and an all metal barrel….reminds me of the batch of all aluminum holders that are very cool, but have no name or mark..never could understand how that could happen…across many pencils….
