This is my pencil sharpener
It's over a century old. Supposedly it was stolen from school by my great great grandfather in the early 1900s, and it's been in the family ever since. Weird family heirloom I s'pose, but I inherited it back in April. I think my Zeyde knew I'm the only person in the family who would willingly accept a vintage pencil sharpener as inheritance. Tbh I think he was somewhat just offloading it onto me but I don't mind lol
It's slightly rusted on top but in otherwise very good condition. It works really well apart from two caveats:
1. Because it's mounted to a wooden block which itself isn't mounted to anything, I have to hold it down while sharpening
2. It kinda sorta likes to munch on the pencils
and so sometimes little flakes of wood come off on my hand which is mildly distracting at worst
It's still better than any other sharpener I've used though lol
What's especially nice about it is, Dixon Ticonderoga, my pencil of choice, aren't perfect, and sometimes an entire pack of pencils will refuse to properly sharpen in modern sharpeners. But these rotary sharpeners will gladly sharpen almost any pencil provided it's the right size because instead of rotating the pencil against a single blade, you're basically wedging the pencil between a pair of long, toothed gears that rip the wood off.
Funnily enough I have a modern, much smaller, plastic version of the same kind of sharpener
It worked really well too until I dropped it and shattered the pencil shaving holder. I hope to someday find a replacement for the broken part.
Update: my middle finger (a.k.a. the pencil-gripping finger) is irritated now, I don't think it likes the feeling of munched-upon pencil
Still my best sharpener though
this would be a hell of a darkner
