Q: Long before the rubber eraser was used to erase pencil marks, this was used. What was it?
A: Bread
No, really. Long before we had the highly efficient ultra-durable erasers of today we had… moist bread. Even before the pencil was invented, writers and artists who used graphite discovered they could erase mistakes by rubbing a bit of bread against the page. The bread itself would be slightly moistened and then rolled into a ball, more or less resembling the erasers we use today. It worked, technically, but it was a rather crumby experience (*ba-dum-tss*).
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