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Has anyone ever heard of the silverpoint (German: Silberstift)? I made myself one with a piece of brass wire (I think silver wire would be better) clipped between a metallic holder.
You have to ground the paper with white Gouache thinned out in water and evenly put it on the paper with a brush. I used white acryl-color, it worked too.
When the paper is dry, you can draw with this thing just like you would with a pencil (though you have to grind the edges of the wire a bit first, to not hurt the paper). The metal reacts with the ground so that you see a silver line (Oxydation will turn it to brown over time, which could maybe look nice too), the stroke is very weak, but thin and sharp.

It was a widely used technique in medieval and early renaissance times and it was replaced by the pencil later on. I think it's a really neat technique even though I'm not very sure yet if it has any advantages or relevant differences in style compared to the pencil. You don't have to sharpen it all the time, yeah, that may be the only cool thing about it.

Does anyone know more about this technique or has any cool examples that show how superior the silverpoint is over the pencil? (I'd really appreciate it because I'm considering using it in my pictures)