Interesting follow-up to your Autopoint story. I met Jonathan Veley at a pen show. He is a pencil afficionado too (a self-professed "Lead Head") and bought the remaining stock of the Panda lead factory, plus a lot of equipment. He now produces replica Autopoint mechanical pencils and sells lead. He's a really interesting guy and he's written several books about the history of manufacturing of mechanical pencils.

See https://www.legendaryleadcompany.com for his story. I bought the least expensive of his newly manufactured Autopoints (they're called Legendary now) and I really love it; it's my best pencil. I love 1.1mm leads and find narrower leads too thin for my preference.