DUX
Gedess (1939), Georges DessonnazInvented and patented in 1939 by Georges Dessonnaz, and named after the first letters of its inventor’s name, the Gedess is the world’s first sharpener for clutch pencils. When the first clutch pencils came on the market at the end of the 1930s, a device was needed to sharpen the lead without damaging the outer metal casing. The Gedess did just that. DUX, a big name in the field of pencil sharpeners started production in 1941. In 1998, DUX was taken over by Standardgraph, but the brand name DUX was preserved.
The drawing in the patent specification (as pictured below) does not show today´s form but the basic idea remained. The current form has been used since about 1944 and is part of the permanent collection of MoMA New York.
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