Pencils
Small objects. Long histories. Endless details.
A personal collection of stories about pencils — their history, materials, design, craftsmanship, varieties, and the pleasure of using and collecting them.
✏️ Brands & Models (23 posts)
1. STAEDTLER Noris 120: 125 Years of a School Pencil Icon
2. Dixon Ticonderoga: From Crucibles to America’s Yellow Pencil
3. Prismacolor Col-Erase: The Colored Pencil Made for Revision
4. Giotto Colored Pencils: An Italian School Classic Since the 1920s
5. Conté Graphite Pencils: How France Turned a Graphite Shortage into a New Pencil
6. Faber-Castell Polychromos: The Colored Pencil Built Around Lightfastness
7. Eagle Mirado 174: The Yellow Pencil with the Red Band
8. Nataraj 621: India’s School Pencil at Industrial Scale
9. Alpino Colored Pencils: From Toy-Factory Scraps to a Spanish School Icon
10. BIC Evolution: The Pencil That Replaced Wood with Synthetic Resin
11. Venus Perfect Pencils: The American Drawing Pencil That Challenged Europe
12. Cretacolor Monolith: When the Whole Pencil Becomes Graphite
13. Eberhard Faber Mongol 482: The Pencil Behind “I, Pencil”
14. Caran d’Ache Grafwood: Fifteen Shades of Graphite
15. Caran d’Ache Prismalo: The Pencil That Learned to Become Watercolor
16. Bruynzeel Design Graphite: The Dutch Pencil Born from Postwar Shortage
17. Musgrave Tennessee Red: A Pencil Made from the Wood That Started the Company
18. Mitsubishi Hi-Uni: The Pencil That Tried to Be Perfect
19. Tombow MONO 100: Precision in Black and Gold
21. Blackwing 602: How a Discontinued Pencil Became a Cult Object
22. Faber-Castell Castell 9000
23. KOH-I-NOOR 1500: The Yellow Pencil That Helped Define a Standard
🏛️ History & Makers (15 posts)
1. Borrowdale Graphite: The Deposit That Made Keswick a Pencil Town
2. Tomsk Pencil Factory: Siberian Cedar and Soviet Pencil Production
3. Pencils in Space: What NASA Actually Used Before the Space Pen
4. From Prata to São Carlos: Brazil’s Two-Billion-Pencil Supply Chain
5. Adel Kalemcilik: Turkey’s Modern Pencil Manufacturer
6. Viking Pencil Factory: Denmark’s National Pencil
7. Blue Pencil: How an Editing Tool Became a Verb
8. Dong-A Pencil: The Company That Opened Korea’s Stationery Industry
9. Viarco: Portugal’s Only Pencil Factory
10. Japanese Pencils and the Pursuit of Finish
11. A Short History of the Modern Pencil
12. Advertising Pencils: Tiny Corporate Archives
13. German Pencil Making Tradition
14. School Pencils From Different Countries
15. The No. 2 Pencil
🪵 Wood, Graphite & Materials (14 posts)
1. Pencil Slats: The Hidden Wooden Component Between Forest and Pencil
2. How a Graphite Pencil Core Is Made
3. What a Pencil Eraser Is Actually Made Of
4. Incense Cedar vs Basswood: Two Different Ways to Build a Wooden Pencil
5. Why Pencils Break When Sharpening
6. Pencil Point Retention Explained
9. Inside a Pencil: Graphite, Clay and Wax
10. Why Pencil Leads Are Bonded to Wood
11. Why Pencil Lacquer Matters
13. What HB, B and H Really Mean
14. Colored Pencils Are Not Graphite Pencils
📐 Design & Details (11 posts)
1. How a Pencil Eraser Is Crimped Into Place
2. The End Cap Is Not an Afterthought
3. What Makes a Pencil 'Premium'?
4. Round, Hexagonal or Triangular?
5. The Anatomy of a Wooden Pencil
6. American School Pencils as Design Objects
7. Why Hexagonal Pencils Became a Classic
8. Ferrules: The Tiny Metal Part Collectors Notice
10. Foil Stamping and Pencil Typography
11. Eraser-Tipped vs Untipped Pencils
✎ Pencil Types (12 posts)
1. Lithographic Pencils: Drawing with Grease to Make a Print
2. Electrographic Pencils: When Graphite Became Machine-Readable Data
3. Slate Pencils: The School Pencil Before Cheap Paper
4. The Election Pencil: Why Polling Booths Still Use Graphite
5. Stenographic Pencils: Built for Writing Faster Than Longhand
6. The Carpenter Pencil: Why Flat Beats Round on a Job Site
7. Non-Photo Blue Pencils: The Lines Meant to Disappear
8. Red and Blue in One Barrel: The Logic of the Bicolor Pencil
9. Grease Pencils and China Markers: Writing Where Graphite Cannot
10. The Clutch Pencil: Why Draftsmen Kept the 2 mm Lead
11. The Golf Pencil: Why Some Pencils Are Made Short
12. The Copying Pencil: A Forgotten Office Technology
🔧 Sharpeners & Accessories (5 posts)
1. The Pencil Clip: Turning a Wooden Pencil Into a Pocket Tool
2. The Crank Pencil Sharpener: How Spiral Cutters Took Over the Desk
3. Pencil Extenders: The Tool That Gives a Stub a Second Life
4. Sharpeners Change the Pencil
🗃️ Collecting (11 posts)
1. How to Store Vintage Pencils
2. Using Pencils Without Destroying a Collection
3. Discontinued Pencils and Collector Psychology
4. Why Vintage Pencil Boxes Matter
7. The Collector's Two-Pencil Rule
8. How to Photograph a Pencil Collection
9. Reading the Imprint on an Old Pencil
10. Cheap Pencils Can Be Fascinating
11. How to Start a Pencil Collection
📝 The Pencil Experience (9 posts)
1. Smoothness Is Not the Same as Quality
3. The Quiet Precision of H Pencils
4. A Pencil Is a Consumable Measuring Stick
5. Paper Changes How a Pencil Feels