The pencil with an attached eraser was patented

On March 30, 1858, Philadelphia stationer Hymen L. Lipman received U.S. Patent No. 19,783 for a “Combination of lead-pencil and eraser.” The idea was disarmingly simple: reserve about a quarter of the pencil’s length for a groove holding prepared india-rubber, glued in place, with graphite at one end and eraser at the other. Sharpen either end and you refreshed either tool.

The patent’s life was as eventful as its idea was modest. In 1862, Lipman sold the rights for a reported $100,000 to Joseph Reckendorfer, who later sued pencil maker Faber for infringement.

In 1875, the U.S. Supreme Court erased the patent entirely, ruling that merely bolting two known devices together was not a true invention.

The legal defeat barely mattered. The eraser-tipped pencil had already become a fixture, proof that the most enduring inventions are sometimes the ones that simply put two familiar things in the same hand.