Comments on: Review of PaperMate American Naturals.

by: Mary M

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 22:11:33 +0000

I have 29 second grade students and pencil quality is a MAJOR problem. I sharpened 72 papermate yellow pencils. Of the 72, 21 would not sharpen and another 12 sharpened with only a very small amount lead peaking beyond the wood. A child won’t be able to write much more than there name with those. That leaves only 39 deacent pencil. Pretty poor but better than the Chinese and vietnam pencils which are totally worthless! Ticonderogas fare better in our studies.

by: Grace

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:26:32 +0000

I don’t understand how Papermate can brag about the quality of woods used on their pencils, then turn around and put a lousy stub of plastic in the tip to resemble a “real” eraser. It actually fooled me “visually” into thinking it worked like an eraser should, so I ordered them for our department. I used it on an important legal draft–what a mess!!YUCK! I thought “one bad one in the batch” are you kidding??? They’re all bunk. How stupid do you think consumers are??? Poor 2nd graders! I’m spreading the word! For now on… SMUDGE PROOF PENCILS ONLY!!

by: Matt

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:00:05 +0000

Anyone notice the subtle difference in lead when they changed over to PaperMate? The Sanford ones i have dont smear quite as much and the eraser is better. When the papermates came along i had to stop buying these pencils because it just got worse with every batch i picked up.

by: jeff in baltimore

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:19:00 +0000

Have grown fond of the EF American Naturals. Of course, they are nowhere to be found in Baltimore once I discovered them and need to reorder .Now I’m done my gross, and the replacement Papermate American Naturals have such a smudgy eraser, I thought they were just old rubber. Appears not so…all my EF’s have worn down erasers…the Papermates…well, forget the eraser

by: Slywy

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 02:47:00 +0000

Has anyone reviewed Focus natural finish round pencils? Are they available any more? Who makes them? They have a metallic blue ferrule and a white eraser. I have maybe 15 of them and don’t remember if they were from a major brand. Just curious.

by: Stewart C. Russell

Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:38:00 +0000

And I’ll bet these are the very same pencils that are sold as Canadiana Naturals here. I wasn’t impressed, but being European, I’ve never liked pencils with erasers attached. The balance is all shot, and we weren’t supposed to use erasers at school anyway.

by: WoodChuck

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:24:00 +0000

The wood used in these American Naturals is Jelutong (or Pulai which is a similar species. Both grow in Indonesia. Traditionally the American & American Classic pencils of was part of Eberhard Faber line later acquired by Faber-Castell USA and used cedar as well as other higher quality materials.

Once Newell’s Sanford division acquired Faber Castell USA and a year later Empire-Berol they were left with many different pencil lines of similar qualities. As they worked to rationalize the various brands around a good-better-best set they repositioned the American brand at the lower end for wood cased pencils changing eraser, ferrule, wood. Transitioning from Eberhard Faber name to Sanford and finally PaperMate once they acquired this brand. As Prevo iindicates The American line is designed to be good enough for the price.

by: tomleininger

Sat, 20 Aug 2005 07:49:00 +0000

Speaking of kids and schools, maybe you could review the old standard Dixon Ticonderogas. My wife bought me box because, being a former 1st grade teacher, she said these pencils worked the best for her kids. She mainly bought them for me because she knew I had not bought any new pencils since I started to regularly read the blog. It is nice to use the pencil again.

by: frank c.

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:35:00 +0000

Another excellent review. The American Naturals don’t sound, however, as if they compare favorably to the Forest Choice pencils. Given the smearing and the poor eraser noted in the review, I think I’ll stick to the Forest Choice pencils.