A small collection of ... what do you call these ?

[fernando]

My time in the army had its operational period, although nothing at all related with pencils but, instead, needles, syringes and morphine ampoules; go figure why they sent me to paramedics.
This is one of the cases where names of things between different cultures are of an idiomatic basis and not of strict translation. We call a linear pencil a lápis; from the Latin lapis (nominative), «pedra» (rock/stone) by the Italian lapis. What would be for us a mechanical pencil would be a lapiseira, an object of tubular or prismatic shape, made of metal or plastic, where a piece of lápis is adapted ...
For the contents inside the common pencil we use the term craião, the same used to call a drawing or a art work made with the same naked graphite. I think (think) this is a galicism, from the french crayon.
For the load (shaft) of lapiseiras we use the term mina, from the celtic mina «mineral», by the French mine.
I remember in my youth lapiseiras were a selective accessory, only used by professionals and design students. A famous mark for quality was Swiss "Caran d'Ache".
Attached a picture of an old small case of tubes with colour minas, from my miscellania collection.

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