Usage examples for packthread:

• A dirty- looking squint- eyed fiddler followed the troop, grinning and smirking, and scraping away on a thing professing to be a violin, which was made up half of wood and half of pasteboard, having three pieces of packthread for strings. "Tales From the 'Phantasus', etc. of Ludwig Tieck" – Ludwig Tieck

• The cable was about as thick as packthread and the bars of the length and size of a knitting- needle. "The Blue Fairy Book" – Various