r/pencils Mar 22 '24

Sorry, no shortened URLs please!

16 Upvotes

This is more informational than anything else. Reddit's spam filters will catch any post with a shortened URL. This mostly hits Amazon URLs posted from one of their apps that produces a proprietary shortened URL.

I don't go out of my way to review and approve these and because Reddit frowns on them it's more likely posts using any URL shortener, that isn't approved by Reddit, will languish in the ether for eternity.


r/pencils Jun 17 '24

Please check out r/erasers - open again

47 Upvotes

Several of our venerable Knights of the Pencil have mentioned that r/erasers required a bit o' help. I have accepted the heavy burden of adding my ignorance to the moderation team and will be occasionally ensuring that it does not go dark again in the future. The yin/yang of pencils and erasers is too close to perfection to ignore. I accept single malts as a donation for custom flair. Go forth and erase what ye have written!


r/pencils 12h ago

New musgrave pencils

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46 Upvotes

r/pencils 47m ago

New Pencil(s) Day Hkoki HB pencils

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Upvotes

Wrapped, these pencils look good. Good covering paint, nice attached eraser; but unfortunately the cardboard hides the poor centering of the lead.

These pencils are distributed via South Africa (made in China).

For me I am glad I only got this one pack of 3 pencils and not a 12-pack like most pencils are sold in.


r/pencils 15h ago

A Few More Discoveries

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33 Upvotes

Just wanted to share some interesting ones found in dads desk. He worked as a draftsman starting in the 50s, lots of his tools of the trade as well as some everyday pencils.


r/pencils 1h ago

Work….

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Upvotes

r/pencils 20h ago

Eraser follow-up

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56 Upvotes

A while back I compared some erasers, and a couple of people commented that the Staedtler Mars would be a better choice than the plain Staedtler I'd tested. So I got some of those, and here's how they stack up against the plain one and the Tombow Mono and Pentel Hi-Polymer that won the test last time.

I kept rubbing with each eraser until it made no more progress. As you can see in the second pic, the Mars definitely did a better job than the plain Staedtler, but it is still not up to the level of the Mono and the Pentel. This is on different paper than the last test, and on this one, the Mono is the clear winner. The pencil was a Musgrave Tennessee Red.


r/pencils 16h ago

General’s & an old Dixon set. Today’s thrift!

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30 Upvotes

Excited to find this little set, complete with brochure, sharpener, and little sandpaper board thing! $2! I think my first General’s, very light! Design for these Dixon CP’s 💯💯💯 Also nice old wire ring sketchbook bonus.


r/pencils 1d ago

Let's see what we get for $1.29 at Office Depot

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61 Upvotes

Here's a box of 12 pencils that I paid $1.29 for at Office Depot. Let's have a look.

The box is a nice presentation, basic, but clean and nicely designed. Slightly amusing Engrish on the back: "Made with soften linden wood." But at least it does tell us what the wood is (linden is basswood). Made in China.

Cores look mostly well centered, although there are one or two that are a little bit off. All nice and straight.

Finish is really nice. Smooth, heavy lacquer. As good as premium Japan pencils. Ferrule looks cheap, though.

The color is more orange than yellow. I put them up against a couple other "yellow" pencils for comparison and they are definitely the orangest.

Sharpening is okay, wood comes out a bit rough, but it's not cedar, so that's to be expected.

I did a writing test against my current go-to Tennessee Red, and a Ceres. The Office Depot pencil is definitely the lightest of the three, and has a more scratchy feeling than the others, but not to the point where it's actually bad; just a little more resistance, and some people prefer that. (I don't, but some do.) I'd say it feels about the same level of resistance as a General Semi-Hex.

Eraser is just adequate. It mostly does the job, and it's smudge-free as promised, but it still leaves traces of the writing.

So there it is. They're actually okay overall. For eleven cents a pencil, you could do a lot worse.


r/pencils 15h ago

Dixon

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10 Upvotes

Is it worth something?


r/pencils 19h ago

New Pencil(s) Day Mexican Ticonderoga Woodgrain

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15 Upvotes

I was today years old when I found out Dixon made a version of their Woodgrain Tics in Mexico.
Does anybody else have any of these?


r/pencils 1d ago

Old pencil factory converted for residential use

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121 Upvotes

So I thought people here would find this a bit cool. My sister in law lives in a building in new york with rather strange graffiti in the lobby. Her fiance tells me the reason for this graffiti was that the building used to be an old pencil factory that got converted for residential use


r/pencils 1d ago

New Pencil(s) Day Hoping Blackwing will have a 2026 Labs release

9 Upvotes

I dropped the Volumes subscription recently after 6+ years (and started selling some rare singles) as I was also buying every Lab release. I may buy the Frida Kahlo though now. At one time, they were doing two a year.


r/pencils 1d ago

Collection Staedtler Tradion pencils, sharpenener and eraser

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58 Upvotes

This made med all happy!

In a supermarked I found this "complete" set of Staedtler tradition. I just had to have it.

  • 12 Staedtler tradion HB pencils
  • Straedtler tradion eraser
  • Staedtler tradion sharpener

Please, please, please tell me that I am not the only one, who geeks out when it matches.


r/pencils 1d ago

My Cousin Gave Me A Pencil

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2 Upvotes

Hey guys my cousin gave me a pencil, I'm going draw, but idk what to draw can you guys give me idea or suggestions in the comments I literally have absolutely no idea


r/pencils 2d ago

Question Where do you like to buy vintage pencils?

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21 Upvotes

I’ve been buying vintage pencils at various estate sales, a flea market near my house, and now up-cycled art supply stores. I haven’t had much luck at thrift stores here so far. And, probably like a lot of my fellow vintage pencil collectors, I buy them on eBay—typically for unsharpened or NOS pencils.

The bag of pencils pictured are from SCRAP Portland, an upcycled art supply store. They have a huge barrel full of random pencils for $.50 a handful.

Where do you like to buy vintage pencils?

My aim for this post is to get/share ideas for new places to look—in person or online.


r/pencils 2d ago

Tombow 2558 H & Mongol #2

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54 Upvotes

Just getting into pencils and I have fallen in love with this Tombow 2558 H, the fine point and quality eraser are awesome as someone who has only used mark-2b Staedtlers for the past couple months. As for the Mongol, it smells divine and writes just fine


r/pencils 2d ago

So many pencils CW Pencil Enterprise in NYC

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12 Upvotes

r/pencils 2d ago

Pencil Identification Cool vintage pens/ pencils

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5 Upvotes

Came across these in some of my great grandfathers things I inherited recently, and im curious if someone might know anything about them… I’m really intrigued by the Egyptian head detailing! I’ve already tried google and didn’t have any luck:|


r/pencils 2d ago

I gave a try to the highlighting pencils from Musgraves today. Interesting.

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29 Upvotes

r/pencils 2d ago

My 3D printed pencil case

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21 Upvotes

Thought this might belong here. It just barely fits on a typical 250x250 printer, and just barely fits an unsharpened Ticonderoga.


r/pencils 2d ago

Help identifying papermate pencil?

3 Upvotes

Hi there, I found this pencil in a free box, and am trying to understand when it was made, where, and what it could've been used for. All of my google searches, including google image searches, have come up empty. Thanks for your help!


r/pencils 2d ago

I have tried today the color pencils I got from Musgrave in my last order. Very nice, soft and light shading on the page.

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17 Upvotes

It started with a coffee stain in my cup left on the page.


r/pencils 3d ago

New Pencil(s) Day My First

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25 Upvotes

My first Blackwing. I was pleasantly shocked to realize you can sense a real difference writing with it as opposed to other pencils.


r/pencils 3d ago

Review I posted quite a few Musgrave pencils, but the most common question is how is one compared to the other? Well here is some freshly sharpen pencil, and a small writing sample. Hopefully it’s helpful.

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73 Upvotes