Modern Replica WWII Secret Map Pencil
In 1942, British gadget master Charles Fraser-Smith challenged the UK's Cumberland Pencil Company to hide an escape kit inside an ordinary pencil.
Working in secret, a small team hand-drilled the pencil shafts, leaving some lead at the tip. They then inserted a tissue-paper map and a tiny compass beneath the eraser. The pencils were issued to Lancaster Bomber airmen during WWII, allowing downed crews to snap them open and access the hidden escape tools.
Remarkably, no one has ever fully recreated the original Cumberland Pencil Company's secret pencils. More than 50 years later, replicas had to be made thicker than the wartime originals.
