WHO would like to see the box of assorted vintage pencils I got on ebay as a birthday present for myself?

Doesn't matter, you're seeing it anyway

First, the box, and what I was actually looking for: Mephisto pencil boxes are *lovely* and come in all sorts of variations

Inside are a bunch of Mephistos, plus a bunch of other assorted vintage pencils from all over

Copying pencils were indelible, and could be used to make copies (as they had analine dye in them, so if you wet them they'd imprint on another surface). Lots of variations in these, depending on when and where they were made - I love the design of the 'Mephisto'

There's a 'Masters' pencil - not sure of when it was made, but these are all early twentieth century-ish.

Wolff's Spanish graphite - they had the royal seal at the time, and made all the pencils used in the courts (not this one)

There's a random slate pencil - ie, for writing on slates. I know nothing about these, I'm a graphite man myself, but it's pleasing to write on a blackboard with it

Next, a TOZ pencils from Jugoslavija (which tells us it's pre-2003, at least). The factory was shut down in shady conditions in 2015, the workers reckoned it had been run into the ground deliberately because it was valuable land https://www.total-croatia-news.com/business/581-zagreb-pencil-factory-toz-penkala-closes-its-doors

(more photos on the original page: https://lupiga.com/vijesti/zadnji-radni-dan-u-tvornici-olovaka-zagreb-toz-ovim-olovkama-vise-nitko-nece-uciti-pisati)

There's also this mystery pencil, with just this text on the side which google translate tells me is 'advertising pencil' in Ukranian. At a guess, probably a sample showing what they could print? Personal to-do is to look up pencil manufacture in the Ukraine

And finally, friends, is this pencil. This lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole

I thought it might be easy to date, given it had a business and an address. I learned that this company was set up way back in 1810

It took part in the great exhibition of 1851 https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1851_Great_Exhibition:_Official_Catalogue:_Class_X.:_Salmon,_Ody_and_Co

Where they won a medal, according to this British Medical Journal from 1884