This piece is by Matt Downey, a student of music and pencils.
I love pencils. All kinds of pencils. I have a weird love of graphite and gel ink. I carry untold numbers of implements with me at all times. I know that it is explained via OCD, but I feel I must have a source of graphite with me. I am a Music Composition major at a SUNY (State University of New York).  I just finished my freshman year. At the bookstore on campus there are few implement choices. Sharpwriters, Matics, and overpriced Pentels. The woodcased pencils are not worth mentioning except the overpriced art pencils such as Turquoise which are in another section of the store entirely. When comparing the Pentels to the Papermates and the Bics, $5 gets you one of the former and ten of the latter two. Among music students I have observed that the Matic is the choice most often made. Twenty years ago the allegiance would have been given without question to the Mongol. To Sanford a cry of “bring it back,” along with the Blackwing is futile but heartfelt.

Technical Data.
Material: Plastic.
Core: .07mm.
Point: Plastic fixed needle.
Eraser: White vinyl.
Markings: “BIC (w/mascot) Pencil .07mm #2” on clip.
Origins: Varies. I’ve seen China, USA and France.
Availability: Office supply stores, CVS and anywhere BIC writing products are sold.

All right, it’s confession time. I learned to write with a Mongol and a Matic back about 13 to 14 years ago. Matics are a sentimental favorite of mine for that reason. This has not prevented me from abandoning them in favor of Pentels (wish I still had that P205) but I have always come back to it because of its merits:

1.Solid tip: Although plastic, it is not flimsy as the Papermates. Also I fear every other mechanical pencil in this price range I have tried has felt like it was not worth buying. This feels solid.

2.Balance: It is similar to a woodcase without an eraser if you remove the clip as shown in the photo.

3.Eraser: White vinyl and soft. It erases better than a standard Dixon. From the point of view of people at my school that is the deciding factor. The Papermate has the same thing they put on the American, which is an abomination. Now the Pentels, which are ten times the price, have better erasers, but no one wants to spend $5 dollars on a pencil that Staples gives in three packs for the same price. So the eraser is great, and is the reason many people buy this cheap item.

Cosmetically, it looks like Bic’s Cristal pens, except it comes with a colored clip. It is inexpensive and writes well.

Now after the reviewing is done I will throw in my biases.

I like dark lines and smooth writing. My favorite woodcase pencils are: Palomino (check out Timberlines 6/20/06), Forest Choice, and I just got some Mongols with which I relive school days. On the Mechie trail, I favor various Pentels .05mm equipped with .05mm/2B lead.  The only things I do with Matic pencils is break off the clip (OCD) and switch to Pentel HB lead which I think is slightly smoother. This pencil is also available in .05mm but I haven’t seen any in the bookstore for some time and don’t have any to review.

Conclusion: A good buy for general purpose. A must have for pencil lovers as they are of a high quality and cheap. To me there is something important about having samples of both types of pencils, regardless of which one garners more use. In my case I sketch (music) with wood and score (make the sketches the piece envisioned) with mechanical. Why? My handwriting is horrible and scores need all the legibility I can muster. Uniformity in point helps with that. For a sketch, which is to say the creation of the piece, wood seems best. I am an equal opportunity pencil freak, and I recommend that you check out a Matic without delay.
[Images and text, M.D.  Used with very kind permission.]

Dandelion Wine is a whole lot of summer in less than two hundred pages. It tells the story of young Douglas Spaulding, who lives in Green Town, Illinois. At the beginning of one summer, he and his brother decide to record the things they do in the summer, in order to keep track off the regular activites and experiences of children during that season — from buying a new pair of tennis shoes, to making dandelion wine — whose taste brings a bit of summer to even the longest and most dreary of winters and coldest of hearts.

Just why this little novel by Ray Bradbury is of interest to Comrades and Pencil People lies in lines like these:

He brought out a yellow nickel tablet. He brought out a yellow Ticonderoga pencil. He opened the tablet. He licked the pencil.

Douglas licked the yellow Ticonderoga pencil whose name he dearly loved.

For, you see, the main character’s pencil of choice is the Ticonderoga. Pencils figure strongly in this little book of wonder, even near the end of the story and the end of summer:

And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.
He knew it first while walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dime-store window. They stood there, unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.
“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!”
“Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.”

Dandelion Wine is a splendid read for anyone who remembers being a child in the summer and all of the little things we all did to stay cool and not bored — or for those who want to remember.

[Images, J.G. Special thanks to Matt Le Claire who recommended this book in a comment on Tom’s review of the Ticonderoda.]

Comrade Carol sent us in some very fine pencil drawings, which we post here with permission of and thanks to the artist:)

At Navy Pier in Chicago, there is a bronze statue of Oak Park native Bob Newhart.  What is special is that he is holding a pencil:)

[Images, J.G.  Used with my own not-so-kind permission.]

Jeremy from Loud Style has caught the pencil blog even more than the last time we checked in.

My little collection has grown quite a bit in the past six months. Since my last blog post about pencils is the most visited page on this site (after the homepage of course), I decided to write about them again.

My favorite pencils are often the natural, unpainted variety of incense cedar pencils. A nice coat of varnish is fine — completely bare is even better. The details and my opinions of the pencils pictured are below.

Read on about natural pencils such as the Blackfeet Indian, Musgrave, Forest Choice, Mongol and more!

Once again, comments will go unmoderated, and email will be on hold until I return home late Tuesday night from my trip. Apologies for tardiness (again).

[Image and text, L.S. Used with permission.]

From Comrade Ashley:

Here attached are some photos of a new use for short, stubby pencils. Office Depot sells thin, plastic Mead brand index card cases. They hold 50 cards. I’ve discovered that they can also hold a small pencil — the ones I don’t use because they’ve gotten too short, but are still functional. Moreover, a few index cards can be secured to the outside of the case with a rubber band, a la expensive Levenger index card holders!

Vive la Revolucion!

Many thanks to Ashley, a truly dedicated Revolutionary:)

[Text and image, A.M.  Used with kind permission.]

Finally, another sharpener review! This piece is courtesy of our good friend and pencil champion Woodchuck.

KUM and California Republic Stationers have collaborated to introduce a special edition Palomino Long Point Sharpener. This is an adaptation of the premium “Automatic” Long Point sharpener from KUM that features a two step process to acheiving a perfect point. The first step sharpens just the wood leaving the graphite core mostly untouched for step two; sharpening the graphite core to a fine even point. Normally available in a translucent red finish this special edition is translucent orange to complement the Palomino graphite pencil range.

Type: Dual 8mm holes - to sharpen regularly-sized pencils in two steps.
Blade Material: 2 Steel blades (plus 2 replacement blades included).
Shavings Receptacle: Translucent orange plastic with clear plastic hinged lid; oval profile.
Point Type: Long Point (approx 2.3cm from sharpend pencil point to lacquer coat 0.5cm exposed graphite core).
Markings: “Palomino California Republic Stationers” is imprinted in gold on side of the sharpener; “KUM Automatic Long Point” appears on the clear lid with “Made in Germany” on the bottom.
Physical Size: Approximately 2 1/2 inches long X 1 1/2 wide X 1 inch high.
Availability: Palomino Limited Edition through Pencil World Creativity Store; standard KUM Automatic online at Pencilthings.com, Dick Blick and art and office supply stores.

Prior to being exposed to this two-step sharpener I was a devotee of the KUM metal wedge sharpeners favoring either the magnesium two hole or a block type one hole sharpener. I have several varieties of these, both with and without various container formats. I’ve even gone so far as to string a two hole magnesium wedge sharpener to a lanyard for use during fishing trips. I still enjoy the range of magnesium wedge sharpeners for the simplicity, and the clean, short points when I’m using a Golden Bear or Prospector around the house or office.

However, I’ll no longer touch my Palominos with anything but this Long Point sharpener. It provides a fine, crisp point that lasts longer between sharpenings than the wedge point. The feel and performance when writing or sketching is just great. While it does take a bit more care to protect the sharper point for the first few minutes of use than the more blunt wedge shape of other sharpeners, it’s worth the effort. This sharpener also makes the pencil look so much more of a premium product, much better than our initial factory sharpening which does the best job we can do without hand sharpening and creating a higher risk of damage during shipment. If I could find a way to provide the Palominos with this quality point straight from the factory without any damage I’d do it in a minute.

Each sharpener comes with two spare blades and a cardboard case with operating instructions on the two-step sharpening process. The blades are interchangeable, as it’s the design and precision milling of the light magnesium alloy that positions the pencil relative to the blade to achieve a perfect pencil point. The screw-mounted blades are held absolutely immovable, do not loosen, and the pencil does not wobble while turning. Since you’re sharpening the graphite alone in the second step, you can get to a great point purely by feel as you can really sense the lighter resistance of the graphite on the steel blade.

One thing I still don’t quite understand is the name “Automatic”. Though it was explained to me as something to do with the autostop feature so that the 1st step of sharpening the wood alone does not oversharpen the pencil, it seems to me this is really a manual sharpener. Thus the “Automatic” terminology seems a bit out of place, and for our purposes we have dropped the Automatic name from our eBay listing.

KUM produces two standard styles. A red version which is just the same as this Palomino limited edition and blue version which adds a 0.5mm mechanical lead pointer to one side. Both are available through PencilThings.com and other places online.

As far as this special edition Palomino Long Point version is concerned I was first introduced to this sharpener back in January at the Frankfurt PaperWorld fair during a meeting with KUM Owner and Managing Director Fritz Luettgens. I knew immediately I had to pair it with our Palomino pencils to ensure our users had the opportunity to experience the best sharpened point in the world with our fine quality pencils. The whole group at KUM was great to work with and patiently created a series of color variations until we got just what we wanted, a nice translucent orange with our gold California Republic Palomino imprint on one side.

[Images and text, Woodchuck.  Used with very kind permission.]

We have been remiss to not have mentioned our friend Armand’s divine source of all things paper, including Moleskine notebooks and Palomino pencils: Paperitif — Written and Stirred.

At Paperitif, you can find fantastic gift sets ranging from gardening to travel and fly-fishing:

Paperitif.com is a new company based in Lake Villa, Illinois, USA offering distinctive gift sets featuring the best materials for writers, graphic artists, journal keepers, musicians and other professionals and hobbyists. At Paperitif, we believe that its “always better on paper” and invite you to rediscover the joys of text; the handwritten kind, that is. Yes, we’ve got the materials! Just add personality.

Stop on over, and enjoy Armand’s wonderful photos and the opportunity to treat yourself or a lucky recipient to a beautiful gift.

[Images, A.F.  Used with very kind permission.]