What Is It? June 2016

Ronald Moreschini, D.D.S of Pueblo, Colorado identified the June’s What Is It. Here is what he said:

“I’ll bet you don’t get too many answers on this one—It just so happens I have one of these.

It reminds me, when I was about 14 years old, we had a small grocery store and filling station, and I used to slice baloney with a machine much larger than this one.

As you know, this is a pencil sharpener.

The pencil slips down into a hexagon shaped hole at the top, and sticks out a little at an angle past the flat surface, There is a sharp, three bladed, star shaped cutter that is connected to the handle and rotates with the handle. As the handle turns, the three blades engage a gear like disk on top that has a hexagon shaped hole, that the pencil fits into so as the star shaped cutter rotates it also causes the pencil to rotate, and as the pencil rotates each one of the three blades of the star shaped cutter slices off a shaving of wood and eventually some of the lead of the pencil, producing a nice point, the shavings fall into the drawer, which can be pulled out and emptied when needed.

The whole process is very soothing, with a clickity clack, snippity snip, you seem to relax, your pencil is sharp, and all is right in the world.”

Thanks, Ron, for sharing. We enjoyed your delightful description of the pencil sharpener and the memories you have about it. And, by the way, congratulations! You have won a year’s subscription to The Mountain States Collector!