Pencil Revolution

The pencil wishlist.

I love pencils. I give them to most of my friends, family, colleagues and really just anyone I like at all. Some people don’t use them, citing imperfections of pencils in general, such as the fact that they can be erased, that they need to be sharpened, that they don’t fit in your pocket, etc. These are certainly legitimate concerns. There are times when I use ink instead of pencil, for a few things. I know, graphite is a higher calling, but what can you do?

While pencils are a gift from the universe, there are some things that I’d personally like to see done with pencils in general, specific kinds of pencils and certain manufacturers. I have a feeling that I’m not the only one, so I’d ask that the People share here what they’d like to have changed about or added to the pencil world.

55 Comments so far
Leave a comment

I’ll start:
1) More indelible pencils in the United States, for people who love pencils but need something more permanent. The Sanford NoBlot Ink Pencil is the only one we can find, and they are expensive and not easy to find.
2) Less yellow pencils.
3) A plastic eraser from California Republic Palomino, with the logo on the cardboard sleeve. Because that would be as sexy as those pencils, and that’s just good all around.
4) Quality hand-held sharpeners from Dixon, PaperMate and California Republic that match their finer pencils. Who wouldn’t like a black sharpener to go with their Black Warriors, or an orange one to go with the smooth Palominos? Maybe a yellow and green one for Dixons…
5) More pencils sans erasers that are end-dipped or capped in the United States.
6) Colored pencils for writing that are dark enough to read and soft enough to not have to push very hard on the paper.
7) A pencil loop for Moleskines (for which I have been working on a design).
8) More pencil-point caps, especially with clips for a pocket, like the one from Faber-Castell, but smaller like the Sav-A-Points from General’s.

I second your wish for more pencil-point caps: an ideal cap for me would be one that would accompany my Faber-Castell Grip 2001 (btw, that was a great review of this great pencil) without diluting its beautiful shape, color, and texture; and small and light enough so that one won’t notice the awkward pull of gravity when the clip is placed at the end of the pencil while writing - probably aluminum would be the best material; and with a clip for suit or bag pockets.

And while I’m at it, I’d like to mention my thanks to you for creating this wonderful site, which I found via Moleskinerie. Pencil Revolution has helped me re-discover the pencil after a couple of decades of using fountain, ballpoint, and rollerball pens, and also its most outstanding feature: reliability.
I’ve experienced a sense of doubt for a split of a second so many times when I start writing with a fountain or a ballpoint pen - even if they’re recently bought or filled with ink, they tend to get stuck and you find yourself scribbling timid circles or lines before writing the first letter so that ink flows to the tip. Although rollerball pens usually don’t have such problems, you can stil run out of ink.
But the pencil - ah, the pencil! You can be sure with a pencil that the first letter will come out clean and clear as long as the lead is there.

Long live the Revolution!

1. More triangular shaped pencils - I wish Staedtler expanded their Ergosoft line so encompass all grades from 6H to 8B

2. Less round pencils - they are always rolling away from your hands and your table

3. Better rotary shapen machines - the ones there is make the pencil lead tip a bit blunt (Staedtler’s machine can be tweaked to produce better tips)

4. A trackball mouse - … err… ok thi has nothing to do with pencils but my mouse is getting on my nerves :-D

Here’s my list:

1. More triangular-shaped pencils. I like the Tri-Write, can’t wait to get the Tri-Conderoga, but wish there were more brands available with a triangular shape (the Palominos with a triangular shape would be a nice start!).
2. More (and better) choices in hand-held sharpeners.
3. Wider availability of the KUM manual sharpener (not just in art supply stores; I found mine in Pearl Paint).
4. A square-shaped pencil would be interesting.
5. Since this is a wish list, a return of the Blackwing 602, and while we’re at it, the Mongol.

Speaking of the Tri-Conderoga…I just found them in Staples. They cost $2.99 for six pencils plus sharpener.
I just sharpened one up (the sharpener is plastic, but it works), and so far so good. The pencil is large (much larger than the Grip 2001, or any other pencil for that matter) and is coated with a rubberized, soft-type grip. I still like the Grip 2001’s feel and darker line, but the Tri-Conderoga is still a very good addition to the triangular pencil line-up.

Not bad–one item on my wishlist fulfilled!

I wish that Dixon, California Republic and all the ofter exiting pencils that I read about on this blog will be available in Denmark, Scandinavia, some day. In most office supply ot book stores I’ll have to choose between Staedtler Mars, Staedtler Noris and Grip 2001 if I want a quality pencil. The superb design of Grip 2001 has made many stores remove all other pencils than that one and the cheap ones. I can’t even get my beloved Schwan-Stabilo anymore.

Until a week ago I also wished for easy access to caps bur then I discovered that several of my local book stores got new accessories for the Grip 2001. Besides erasers and sharpeners they now got eraser caps.

I just found the Tri-conderoga today at Staples, too. Very nice. Would have liked a darker HB, but the shape IS very comfortable to write with.

I’d like (is this heresy?) slightly shorter pencils! Just an inch shorter, or like the length of most pens, would work so much better for my bags and cases.

I would agree with the triangular shaped pencils. Personally, I like the Tri-Write from Dixon the best. The triangulars stray behnd the my ear the best. I wish the Tri-Conderoga was not as big as it is, too heavy behind my ear.
A carbon fiber pencil cap, that is what I want allong with
a carbon fiber pencil case. Whilst I am on the topic of the pencil cases…I wish I could find one I like.
A pencil sharpener that fits in my pocket and has a container to catch the shavings. Actually if the sharpener is made of carbon fiber and titanium composite, would be cool.

Am just checking in from our slat plant in China where I’ve been visitin gthis week to finalize our 2006 production plans to assure supply of quality cedar and basswood slats to all our pencil manufacturing customers.

It’s great to see such a number of interesting recommendations on new pencils and related items you’d like to see. Here are a few follow up comments in response to a points I see above.

Dixon’s new parent company FILA will be introducing soon a new design Ticonderoga without eraser but with familiar green and yellow banding on top for distribution in the European market. The classic tikes can be found in the UK makret.

Faber’s “Perfect Pencil” has a nice quality cap and clip that comes with 3 shorter pencils so you can keep a pencil clipped in your shirt pocket. The Cap has a removeable sharpener integrated into it as well. I use one of these myself with my Palomino pencils and take it whereever I go. I hope in time we will also design our own version unique to our Palomino pencils.

Short pencils - At CalCedar we produce short slats used to produce cosmetic pencils longer than golf pencils and shorter than normal pencils. These are readily available, but the writing pencil producers just don’t seem to want to experiment by adding such items. My guess is they feel this requires some setup changes in their production equipment and production or purchase of special shorter leads all which increase unit processing costs.

Triangular & Other Shape pencils -
(1) While we don’t offer a triangular pencil in the Palomino line we do have them in our Prospector range. I eventually these will add these to the Pencil World Creativity Store.
(2) We are now producing for Dixon a line of Triangular decorated pencils.
(3) In Japan you can find square and even rectangular pencils. I also have a series of interesting shaped carpenter pencils from a European specialty producer. I plan to add some auction sales of these type items to Pencil World ebay store when I can get the time.

Christian - Contact me via crs@calcedar.com and we’ll see what we can do about getting you some Palomino product.

Finally, also comming in the next couple of weeks @ Pencil World will be additions to the Palomino graphite line with broader range of lead grades and a new high end woodcraft kit produced from our genuine Incense-cedar wood.

Thanks for all your input and we’ll see what can be done to make some of your wish list dreams become a reality.

woodchuck,

Great news. I’ll keep checking your ebay store for the new stuff you mentioned. Can’t wait!

pencils rule! :)

Eraserless pencils and hand-held erasers. Students think a pencil is no longer useful when the eraser is used up, and I see plenty of 6 inch pencils tossed. Too much erasing going on and not enough thinking.

Hand held erasers that send out a tiny electric jolt (simply as a reminder, of course) when students begin boring pencil holes in them, or writing on them, or picking them apart into tiny little piles of erasures that they then sweep to the center of the table so that I have to clean them up later when I find them. All of this goes on while I am trying to give a lesson.

Ditto what Woodchuck said about the F-C Perfect pencil. They are awesome. They write beautifully and they are always ready to go with you. The problem is, is that when they go with you, they don’t always make it back. I only set mine down for just a tiny moment. I’m PRETTY SURE it didn’t walk off by itself.

If anybody hasn’t tried the Dixon Ticonderoga LADDIE, give it a try. Lovely ranges of value that erase beautifully. Smaller than a kindergarten pencil but larger than a standard pencil. A large lead, I think larger than 2mm that hand sharpens beautifully. Comes eraserless or with eraser. This pencil will outlast any mounted eraser so I would recommend the eraserless. You might have to order them, but I have found them in most Office Supply Catalogs and they aren’t ‘collector’ prices.

Pencil caps sounds good to me.
Pencils small enough to fit in the wallet or at the bottom of a pocket. Pencils with much harder casings that don’t shave away so quickly. Sharpeners that produce a more and more obtuse angle before returning to the standard conical point. Folding pencils. Folding pencils with tripod attachments. Folding pencils with a tripod attachment and an extensible ruler. Folding pencils with a tripod attachment, an extensible ruler and a tiny scroll holder for those times when you haven’t got a scrap of paper handy!

Lovely and comfortable pencil grips and extensions for stub-ends. Pencils with built-in magnets for easy attachment to fridges, dashboards, key chains and any other iron-containing object. A soft but smudgeless pencil. Calligraphy pencils. Pencils with polarised graphite that is visible from some angles and less visible from other angles. Pencils with graphite that shows up well on photocopies, regardless of how faint the line. Pencils that other people will marvel at.

E-Tat-
You can try some carpenter pencils/flat sketching pencils (Generals makes them) for the Caligraphy pencil in your list.

More wishes…

I get funny looks from other people when I go to departmental meetings. I think it’s because I generally have three or four pencils lying next to my notebook/pad, and once I’ve dulled the point on each, I set to work sharpening one or more of them. It’s a bit idiosyncratic when most of the others are using a single pen.

So it would be nice to have a) a silent pencil sharpener, and b) a truly beautiful pencil case for storing and easily retrieving a given pencil from the set.

Maybe if I were to show up with a svelte and efficient case, other people would recognise my refined appreciation of writing implements.

If you want a shorter pencil for your purse, just use the long ones at your desk at home or in the office. Then when it inevitably gets short enough for your purse, throw it in and open a new one for your desk. Why pay more for a shorter pencil?

I would like to see fewer hexagonal pencils and more round, smooth ones.

I would like the Black Warriors to have a higher quality eraser. They’re a little smudgy now.

I second the idea for colored pencils made for writing. The ‘leads’ would have to be a bit harder so that you wouldn’t find them breaking and chalkily crumbling apart. That would be cool, so you’d be able to look at the word written in colored pencil and see fine, legible lines.

For a long time I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in Central California. It’s damp up there, cold, and gray most of the year. My house was heated by a environmentally-correct woodstove. In the mountains, because of the weather, after a while, you get a little book-ish. Down the highway about 10 miles or so, in the city of Santa Cruz, well, there was an art supply store called Palace Arts. This store carried Blackfeet Indian Pencils. Now I grant you that I have always been a pencil freak. It’s just now, with your wonderful site, I can come out of the closet about it. I have always loved pencils. Some of my favorites have been, over time, the Venus Goddess, the old yellow Mongol #1, Black Warrior #1, and the Tombow Mono B. The Blackwing, of course, cannot be mentioned in the same sentence with any other pencil. It is the high chieftain of all pencils. Somewhere, however, between the Blackwing and the Tombow Mono B, there is a place for the Blackfeet Indian #2. A person who understood me REALLY well once gave me a gross of Mongol #1 pencils for Christmas one year. I was happy for months.
The Blackfeet Indian is almost impossible to buy now, but I remember a time when I could go to Palace Arts in Santa Cruz and buy them by the dozen. They are beautiful: simple hardwood, lots of grain, very simply varnished. The eraser worked like a Pink Pearl, and although you could get them with a gold ferrule, my favorite version is the one with the black ferrule. It looked so minimally beautiful, matching the simple black print on the pencil body. The gold ferrule, to my eye, was a little too flashy, a little too Hollywood. I loved the black. The lead was magnificent. It was never gritty. The line was an impressive black. It did not smear. It held a point pretty well, and what’s even more impressive, I never had a Blackfeet Indian pencil turn into one of those nightmare pencils that break when you sharpen them, and the lead never fell out of the wood after sharpening, either. The lead in these pencils also would last. I bear down when I write and I can use up a Faber Castell Grip 2001 in a couple days. Not so with the Blackfeet Indian pencil. The weight of this pencil was also wonderful, not too heavy, not too light. Some newer pencils, well it feels like the wood is really dried out to the point of where the pencil lends no weight to the writing job. You have to bear down to get a line, some. The Blackfeet, well, it is equal to the task of writing.
I am an internet ranter. When it became clear to me that it was going to be hard to get more Blackfeet pencils through stores, I began to beg them from my pals on the net. A dear friend in Minnesota found that she had a whole box of them, and she sent them to me. She doesn’t use pencils. I have given single pencils from my stash as special gifts to dear friends. Some of them upon receiving these pencils, look at me a little strangely. But I always smile at them and say: there is a poem, or a story, or a drawing, in that pencil, waiting to come out for you. Then the odd look melts into a grin, usually. I only have about a half dozen of these pencils left. I have been looking for suitable substitutes. Consequently I have an embarrassing number of pencils in my house, of which only the General Cedar #2 and the Pacific Music Papers “Magic Writer” come anywhere near the Blackfeet Indian Pencil. The General #2 is a little gritty for my taste, although the aesthetics of the pencil itself are magnificent. The “Magic Writer” has a good lead, except it wears down too fast. Ideally, my pencil would LOOK like the General Cedar, and behave like the Tombow Mono B or 2B. Right now I am writing with a Staedtler 4B lead in a red Koh-i-Noor Lead holder. It’s a little thick for me, but at least the line is black. I bought some TriConderoga pencils, and while I like those, I am not in love.
Based on what I read on your site, I bought some Palominos and some Forest Choice. I am hoping that one of these will be my new Blackfeet Indian Pencil.
What I want to know is this: why is it that when people make something that actually works, like the Blackwing and the Blackfeet pencil, that automatically it just goes away. For example: for a while, I could get the Noris ErgoSoft HB at Office Depot. Now this pencil is both elegant and functional. It doesn’t sharpen away into a nub in two days. The pencil is also beautiful to behold – it has a real Art Deco paint job. Everything works on this pencil, and its 3 bucks a half dozen, ok so a little expensive. But Office Depot won’t carry this pencil anymore. Nope. You want to buy a pencil at Office Depot you have to settle for a school pencil. Now I’m not in love with the Dixon Ticonderoga #2, but I love the #1. I’m willing to deal with the yellow paint for the sake of the lead. Can you find a #1 at Office Depot or Staples? No. At Office Depot or Staples, I can buy all the cheap Pentech atrocities I want. But no Noris, No Ticonderoga #1. For Dixon #1, I have to go to a store across town. For Noris Ergosoft, I have to buy online – General Cedar and Black Warrior #1 I can only get on line, too. To get Mitsubishi or Tombow pencils (and Japanese woodcase pencils are EXCELLENT) I have to drive downtown to Kinokuniya bookstore in Los Angeles. I can get the Faber Castell grips in stores, but not the excellent Faber Castell 9000 (and it is, to my way of thinking, a much better pencil).
Sometimes all of this drives me to use a Pentel .9 mechanical pencil, but that does not make my soul happy. I write for a living. I want REAL pencils.
Thank you, I feel better now.
-humdog

Humdog,
Would you amenable to us using this comment as a post on the blog? It’s too good to be here on a comment list:)

thank you for your kind comment about my comment.

it is ok with me wherever you want to park my little rant.

thank you again

-h

For the person who said something about a pencil case you like, what would that include? I’ve got Five-Star ones that:
*expand
*have a mesh pocket that I keep a sharpener and eraser in
*have two pockets, one of which I keep nice pens in and the larger of which I keep pencils and regular pens in.

It’s also got the three rings for binders, which I don’t need since I haven’t been to school in ages. :)

Indelible pencils?!? I had no idea there was such a thing.

Indelible and pencil…seems somehow wrong.

Me thinks:

1) more indeliable pencils, I need them for exams & signatures etc…

I currently use the Faber Castell 9100. It was produced until 1940 I think and is still available on ebay if you watch out for it. It writes in HB-B, it’s line looks exactly like a greyish pencil line and it becomes blue only if moistured./ over time It uses a very redish cedar wood that has an extremely intense smell.

2) and this is the reason why I am posting here — maybe someone has a quick recommendation:
Electrical pencil sharpeners that match the new Tri-Conderoga in diameter. After reading on this marvellous site about the Triconderoga I was importing some to Germany (and, with the help of the nise staff @ California Republic, Palominos too - thanks again for this great site). I now use Palominos for faster writing and Triconderogas for doing mathematics. And since I do mathematics most of my time I do have a high consumption of pencils. Handheld sharpening is simply impractical and besides that: electrical sharpening gives a finer point. Handheld sharpeners usually do have a blunter point. Especially the ones with bigger holes because they are made for pencils thought for painting. The sharpener that came along with the Triconderogas is no exception ;-(

Btw. for thin pencils like the palomino there exists a hand-held solution I can recommend: the Automatic Long Point series from KUM (here)

3) Palominos with a rubber tip

Jan from Germany

I had forgotten how wonderful pencils were, having had to use pens all through college and in my career as a nurse. Then my daughter started school. What happened to the pencils?!!
My wish list is as follows:
1) Lead that doesn’t break off in the sharpener or up inside the pencil so it looks sharpened then falles apart while you use it.
2) More #1 leads. The #2 are too light.
3) Erasers that don’t crumble into little pink pebbles while erasing. I’m not talking about normal eraser dust here. Every pencil I’ve bought in the past year has a crumbly (i.e. crummy) eraser. I tried buying a seperate eraser but 6 year olds can’t seem to keep track of them.
4) Lead that doesn’t smear when the paper is rubbed against other papers while in the book bag or when it is handled by little sweaty hands.
5) And to really finish my list, I want all of this at a resonable enough price so that the pencils can be sent to school without concern of them not returning. Replacement cost is a big thing when you have kids in school.
Honestly, quality has gone down the drain in the 10 years since I graduated high school.
I’m glad to see not everyone uses pens all the time.

Just Mom, Mirado pencils in B grade (#1) might fit the bill for youngsters. They last a long time, have a nice eraser (Pink Pearl!) and are not very expensive or hard to get. Still, a nice Dixon Black would make a kid the most stylish person in the class:)

[…] DB: A boutique store like ours prospers by being a place where one finds what one wants, and then browses around for other interesting items. I study Pencil Revolution’s “want list/wish list” comments and product evaluations. If somebody wants a pencil-related item, I search for a manufacturer already producing it. If successful, it’s reasonable to assume a market exists — greater in size than one person — because a company has invested its resources to manufacture and distribute the item. Well, your readers and other pencil-users express a wide variety of “wants and wishes” and that’s what drives us to become a “comprehensive source” of pencil things. […]

1. Better erasers. Vinyl would be lovely.
2. More “softer than a #2″ pencils in the States.

I second the wish for a nice “executive” pencil case. I have one of those canvas ones that fits in a 3-ring binder as well–some cheap drugstore zippered job, with a mesh outer pocket for my pencils & sharpener, and my Moleskine (how do you pronounce that?) in the main pocket. It’s nice and fits in my backpack fine, but not so sexy at meetings, you know?

How about a clamshell holder, perhaps with an elastic strap to hold the pencils securely even when opened, and integral (KUM, of course) sharpener? It could be like a nicer glasses case, just somewhat elongated. It could fit in a suit breast pocket like a checkbook would. Now that would just ooze class, yes?

I would like to see more woodless pencils. We have used them for the art classes I teach and they are wonderful. We do not like mechanical pencils, so this is a wonderful compromise. More woodless pencils manufactured in the United States. More jobs for our economy not China.

I would like pencils that sharpen properly and for them to not constantly break off in small pieces. If any one knows of quality pencils please let me know.

I have my one stub of a blackwing left and sometimes I look at it for inspiration. I will try Palominos if I can figure out the paypal thing, which I disapprove of on principal, or send a check. Lately I have been using Uniball Powertank pens (not the clickers, the stick pens) which have a pressurized refill and thus can write when lolling on the couch or at the beach. But I prefer pencils. Well no I prfer the Blackwing. Faber Castell could just make them without the erasers if that was really the problem. The rotten giants. They could get two dollars apiece without any trouble for a long time. No, probably four. I would pay four happily even without erasers, which I never used. I paid a dollar each in Richmond, Virginia back in the 80s. Truly. But I can’t remember how I first ran into Blackwings. It was back in the Selectric era.

I would wish for wood pencils from sanford with their magic rub erasor attached. Hmm an American Natural in 2b with a magic rub in the ferrule…(drools on keyboard at thought)
Eh, baring that a woodcased mechanical for work so i can get that nice tactile thing going. too bad that the way i write on staves requires a really sharp tip constantly along with a really dark line.
Well, at least i have my icy’s to get me through. (Pentel mechanicals are my faves) Oh and of course i want better wood pencils at cheaper prices more readily available etc… Darker Tichonderogas would suit me fine. Oh and the discontinuation or radical improvement of the G2 pencil. It just doesnt live up to it’s ink predesessor. (i’m an implement freak who only uses gel ink and graphite, mostly graphite as i am a music composition student) Mainly i just hope for general overall improvement to facilitate overall enjoyment and satisfaction. So i obviously hope for a pencil to best the Blackwing but given the current situation i hope for one to equal it first.

small round pencil sharpeners though cheaper than graf von’s silver version http://www.skripta-paris.fr/us/art_pencil-sharpener-1-hole-graf-von-faber-castell_37.html

The most important part of the pencil is the ‘lead’ and how it performs. I’m amazed at how few comments refer to it. I’d like a pencil without the grittiness. The Berol Venus, made in the UK are the best I’ve used but getting increasingly hard to find. Perhaps that is not an issue with pencils made in the US?

To whom it might concern:

My name is María Carolina Baulo. I´m 29 and about to graduate in History of Arts. I´m a freelance writer and I´m already writting for several art magazines, that is why I´m contacting different magazines or newsletters interested in having correspondents in different parts of the world. I also wrote several works for the University of Buenos Aires (one of the most prestigious Universities of the world, where I study). I´m bilingual (English and Spanish). I cover all arts.

I wonder if you are the right person to contact, if not, I would appreciate you let me know to whom I must send this request. My very best regards and hope to hear from you soon,

M.C.Baulo

ps: you have all my references at your entire disposition

I really like the Dixon Ticonderoga #2’s. Those would be considered my favorite. However, after stumbling onto this site I MUST find some of those others to try out! Palomino, et al.
Pet Peeve: Teachers who put all of the childrens’ pencils in the center of the table for all to share. I always buy the Dixon Tikes for my tikes (haha). The local WallyWorld carries PaperMate for some ridiculously cheap price and so all the other mommies buy those. Consequently, my kid generally ends up with a crappy pencil and smear marks instead of a neat, clean erasing. GRRR!! So, even though they say not to, I put my child’s name on every single pencil. After all, I’m paying 3x what everyone else is paying so my kid has a quality pencil. Ok, rant over.

Question: I work for a fellow pencil enthusiast…..were I to get him the absolute best pencil ever, what would it be? Thanks for helping the inept.

i like pencils:}

i’m looking for Sanford Draughting 314 pencils. Any clues?

I wish I had a sharpener for my tiny square coloured pencils. They are from Japan, but in the shop there was no sharpener. In the beginning I thought an ordinary sharpener would do, but it brakes the edges of my 3mm-side square pencils :(

I was wondering if someone could recommend a reasonably priced ($ 2.00)
automatic lead pecil available at office supply stores, that one can carry in a shirt pocket without endangering his life, that offers a retractable eraser and a solid dark lead.

Many kind thanks for any suggestions,

Richard

Where can I get a Short Point Sharpener?
I want a regular pencil with a Golf style point on the end. I do carpentry and the long point is to easily broken. I don’t like those large flat carpentry pencils.

As a manufacturer of pencils, I read your suggestions with a lot of interest. Some of your suggestion we can do, but many of them we have already done. With O’BON,
“out” are the boring yellows and other one dimensional colors. Design and beauty are in with us.
Second, we don’t like wood and you shouldn’t either. Even if the wood comes from a sustainable forest (many wood pencils don’t), this isn’t ok with the environment. So, say no to wood based pencils…we have.
Third, our pencil’s graphite simply doesn’t break. Smash it, and see what happens. We can’t guarantee it won’t - but it is a damn rare sight. You can snap (same as wood pencils) it, but short of that, the graphite won’t break. Sounds like we have solved a lot of your problems with wood pencils. We have color, design, durability - and we don’t cut down a tree to make O’BON pencils. Check us out at www.school-obon.com.

i was wondering how much do lead pencils costs that have 1m and 2m lead and what was that about 9000’s and why do they cost 12$s each oh and i tryed the tri-conderoga and i didnt like it i gave it away but i kinda feel bad now knowing there that expensive and some one i liked gave it to me :/ emmail me if possible seeing as i might not remember this site

I’m so glad I found this site and I’m not alone in my love of pencils!

Can anyone help me find plain unpainted round pencils in 1B, 2B, 3B - no eraser. I am not sure if these would be called pencil blanks or not but we want to bea ble to customise them for our client.

More high-quality, bomb-proof, metal-barreled leadholders. Not those infernal thin-lead clickers, but the serious 2mm drafting pencils of old. I say this without prejudice toward woodcase pencils (which I love), but well engineered leadholders are just a joy to work with. Right now, there are maybe two on the market that are worth owning. I would love for the manufacturers go on a binge with leadholders and produce some really beautiful pieces.

I write so badly (handwriting that is…and because I grip a writing instrument with such force my hand cramps), no matter what instrument I use, I can barely read my own handwriting. However, pencils do occasionally slip into my hand. I particularly like the Blackfeet Indian pencils because of who makes them. But how are they sharpened in the same way the Blackfeet do? If I use an automatic sharpener I get a stiletto like point that breaks off to a nub the first letter I write. E mail me with suggestions. Thanks!

What a cool blog!

A number of years ago, I got a little box of 6 eraserless pencils that were simply gorgeous. They were covered with a decorative Italian paper. These pencils are now only a few inches tall, and I have not been able to find more of them, or anything remotely like them, since. Help, anyone????

I wish that someone knowledgeable would post a chart somewhere that references the vintage lead sizes with the sizes available today! For example, just what will work for “real thin lead” as a substitute? I am sooooo confused! Any help would be appreciated. Also references for the various sizes of erasers available and how they are sized. Thanks in advance.

For my standard yellow and green Ticonderoga pencils I use a Radio Shack desk sharpener powered by four AA cells that sharpen them quickly and perfectly every time. We need one for the black and gold Triconderoga pencils. The only sharpener I have found beside the barely-acceptable manual sharpener included in the box, is the old standby adjustable round hole sharpeners that allow the pencil to be mis-alined even with the closest fitting hole size on the selection wheel. We need a self aligning Triconderoga electric desk sharpener. And by the way a three sided self align mechanism would probably allow for six sided pencils to be sharpened in the same unit.

A Mirado Black Warrior HB #2 is a must in my traveling kit.

Great site, I’m glad I’m not the only one that collects and uses pencils. Since this IS a wishlist, I would say that I would love to find more #3 pencils. I came across a rather beat-up Empire Pedigree #3 pencil with a black-banded ferrule and green eraser. It’s just fantastic! But alas, I have no way of replacing it once I sharpen it down to nothingness. I know that I can get other #3 pencils (I’ll probably go with some Papermate Mirado Classics) but I’ve heard that the erasers are low quality.
I had many great pencils in junior high and high school which I would love to see make a comeback such as:
Black Pentech round #2 pencils with neon color notches for the finger grips and neon erasers…
Neon hexagonal “waxy” #2 pencils with the black ferrule and black eraser…
Triangular “waxy” #2 pencils with colored wood and colored metallic ferrules.
I occasionally see them in thrift store pencil bins, but it’s not quite the same. Sniff, sniff, sigh.

Hi, I’m a journalist writing a story on pencils and pencil web culture. If either the site administrator or fans of this site would care to email me, I’d love to hear from you, especially if you use a pencil on the job or for crosswords/Sudoku! Many thanks, Andrew. ak2751@columbia.edu

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

The pencil wishlist.

The People

Comrades at Arms

Revolutionize Yourself

Spread the Revolution

Search

Categories

Archives

Best With

Stats