← Home About This Space Archive Replies Links MN Photos Index ⤴︎ Also on Micro.blog
  • Oh, I said I would be talking about pencils, didn’t I? Sorry, it’ll have to wait a little bit longer.

    Two Desenhos, two Bugles, and a Blackwing

    → 7:01 PM, Nov 1
  • I bought some pencils this week. Some familiar faces and one notable newcomer. Reactions, impressions, and strong opinions soon.

    Scribe, Desenho, Blackwing, Bugle, Newsprint

    → 4:08 PM, Oct 24
  • Hmm, I suppose I could do a regular pen post.

    And I could call it PENDEMIC.

    → 4:29 PM, May 2
  • ✏️ The end of the Pencil Tour:

    Days 1–7
    Days 8–15
    Days 16–21

    22: USA Gold
    23: Try-Rex
    24: General’s Scoring pencils
    25: Kimberly
    26: Scribe and Pacific
    27: Semi-Hex, Badger, and Supreme
    28: Cedar Pointe
    29: Goddess
    30: American

    lots of pencils in a mug

    (Mug by Clinton Pottery)

    → 5:51 AM, May 1
  • close-up of several pencils

    ✏️ Day 30: The Americans

    → 7:35 AM, Apr 30
  • The Americans

    The FaberCastell American 2.5 was the only pencil I used for most of high school and all of college. It was cheap, unpretentious, and easy to find. I would buy a dozen (or two? I can’t remember) every fall and work through most of them over the school year.

    I settled on the 2.5 because of its point retention. It lay down a good line like a 2, but was just firm enough to last a whole class period of note-taking without losing much of its point. I could start out with three or four freshly sharpened pencils each morning, and get through the day without visiting a pencil sharpener. (Also, no one else used them. Boring yellow pencils were everywhere, sure, but not with an uncommon number like two point five. If I saw one kicking around, I knew it was almost certainly one of mine.)

    During college, I gradually switched to pens, until that was almost all I used. I remember the last Americans I bought in the early 90s, after not having picked any up for a while. There were no 2.5’s so I got a dozen 2’s instead. The pencil stock at St Paul Book and Stationery struck me as eerily small: instead of both sides of an entire aisle devoted to dozens of different kinds of woodcased pencils, there was a grim little ghetto with only a few selections from the most common brands.


    Years later, when I was rediscovering the pleasure of writing with pencils, I got all misty and nostalgic for my boring old Americans. I rounded up as many as I could find from our junk drawer, and the back of our home-office supply closet, and from scattered pencil cups. I found more than I expected, even some that were still unsharpened:

    Several from before FaberCastell acquired Eberhard Faber—

    Eberhard Faber Americans

    Fourteen FCs—

    My last 14 American #2s

    But only three of my beloved 2.5’s—

    three American 2.5's

    (Yes, the stubby one has a staple in it. I have no idea why.)


    Recently, due to all these pencil posts, I found myself comparing the 2.5 to some of my other pencils. Depending on the paper, I can’t tell it apart from the Field Notes, the Bugle, and the Goddess. No wonder these are some of my favorite pencils: I like them to the extent that they behave like the 2.5.

    A week or two ago, I found some 2.5’s online, and I decided to buy a dozen. (Cheaper than Blackwings!) I don’t collect pencils for their own sake. If I buy a pencil, it’s with the sincere expectation that I will use it. So I will be sharpening and using all of these 2.5’s. Slowly, but surely.

    eleven unsharpened and one sharpened American 2.5 pencils

    → 7:32 AM, Apr 30
  • List #16: Possible New Daily Posts For May

    A. Rorschach Reveries: In The Mind Of The Beholder
    B. Cap and Plunge: Drawing The Line
    C. Platters: With A Bullet
    D. Fun With Apophenia: It Joins All
    E. Spines: Chapter Of Accidents
    F. Natty Threads: Wearing Out My Welcome

    a single sock on the floor

    a row of LPs

    Jung's Synchronicity, dice, three pennies

    oil slick on pavement resembling a tree or a river delta or

    a stack of books

    I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen

    → 10:18 AM, Apr 29
  • five Goddess pencils

    ✏️ Day 29: General Goddess

    Very similar to the Pacific, it is a mildly gritty HB verging on F. It puts down exactly the right line on every paper I use. Also, round barrel, which I love. After years of collecting, trying, and using pencils, these are my favorite.

    Almost.

    → 6:44 AM, Apr 29
  • ✏️ The pencil tour will be coming to an end this Thursday. But these daily posts have become an important part of my mornings, so I want to keep doing something. But what? Pens? Paper? A pareidolic survey of the sidewalk cracks of south Minneapolis? Who can say!

    a jumble of pencils

    → 12:09 PM, Apr 28
  • six Cedar Pointe pencils

    ✏️ Day 28: General’s Cedar Pointe

    This was the second General pencil I discovered, after the Kimberly. I used to find them in the craft section of Fred Meyer. For years, they were the most common pencil at my desk. And they are absolutely the coolest looking things.

    → 6:59 AM, Apr 28
  • General Semi-Hex, Badger, Supreme

    ✏️ Day 27: General’s Semi-Hex, Badger, and Supreme

    Three excellent pencils. To my eye, they lay down almost identical HB lines, but the Supreme may be the darkest, the Badger feels a bit creamier than the others, and the Semi-Hex has a hollow feel, implying a less dense core.

    → 5:41 AM, Apr 27
  • General's Scribe and Pacific pencils

    ✏️ Day 26: General’s Scribe and Pacific

    These both feel slightly firmer than true HB.

    The Scribe, like the Bugle, is a fantastic minimalist pencil.

    The Pacific was, for a time, in the running for my favorite everyday pencil, until it was superceded by another (stay tuned).

    → 5:39 AM, Apr 26
  • ✏️ My pencil posts have become so wildly popular, I’ve found I can’t go out without being mobbed by fans.

    So — and I know this is going to sound extreme — to keep from being recognized, I’ve taken to actually wearing a face mask every time I leave the house.

    → 12:51 PM, Apr 25
  • six General Kimberly pencils

    ✏️ Day 25: General Kimberly

    During my pencil renaissance in the mid ’00s, these were the first pencils I fell for. I loved the green and gold — and that ferrule! I used 2H to 4H. (It was a long time before I moved to HBs.) And I started looking out for the “General” brand.

    → 5:50 AM, Apr 25
  • General's Test Scoring and Baseball Scoring pencils

    ✏️ Day 24: General’s scoring pencils

    CWP’s Baseball Scoring pencil makes me miss my Mom, who was a huge baseball fan. She’d have loved this pencil. I remember sitting in the bleachers with her, filling out the ballot for the all-star game every year.

    More Generals coming up.

    → 5:35 AM, Apr 24
  • three Try-Rex pencils

    ✏️ Day 23: Moon Try-Rex

    Fairly smooth core on the soft side of HB. Given my preference for harder, grittier graphite, I can’t say exactly why I’ve fallen for the Try-Rex, but I have. It’s such a lovely pencil.

    A view of two Try-Rex pencils from the end, showing their triangular shape

    → 5:59 AM, Apr 23
  • two USA Gold pencils

    ✏️ Day 22: USA Gold

    Nice, easy pencils. A dozen for maybe $3. I can resist everything except temptation.

    Made in the US, which means General, Musgrave, or Moon. I haven’t dug into this, so I’m not sure, but my gut sez Moon. The erasers are too good for Musgrave.

    → 6:09 AM, Apr 22
  • ✏️ The Pencil Tour so far:

    Days 1–7
    Days 8–14

    15: Bugle
    16: Tennessee Red
    17: Dixon
    18: Blackfeet
    19: Sunset
    20: Mirado
    21: Mongol

    even more pencils in a mug

    (Mug by Clinton Pottery)

    → 10:17 AM, Apr 21
  • three Mongol pencils

    ✏️ Day 21: Mongol

    Another classic. I can’t remember how long these three have been with me, in a pencil cup or drawer. Years. Exquisite core: smooth, dark, but firm. And you may have spotted one on the cover of this book.

    → 6:03 AM, Apr 21
  • two Eagle Mirado pencils

    ✏️ Day 20: Eagle Mirado

    More from my CWP visit in December. Like the Black Warrior and the Ticonderoga, another ubiquitous pencil in American schools. After a long descent into mediocrity, the Mirado has just been discontinued. (Maybe someone can buy the name and reissue it.)

    → 6:39 AM, Apr 20
  • ✏️ Day 19: “Sunset”

    Sunset pencil

    It was pretty hard to find out anything about this pencil. It seems to have been made (or at least distributed) by Crown Zellerbach.

    Nice pencil. Mostly harmless. I like that the “o” of “No” is a little stylized pine tree.

    → 7:17 AM, Apr 19
  • Blackfeet pencils

    ✏️ Day 18: Blackfeet Indian Writing Co

    A Sundance and an Exacta. Two excellent pencils I’ve had forever. I wish I had more of these. I don’t write with them anymore; they stay in my small nostalgia jar with a few other rarities.

    Blackfeet pencils

    (More about Blackfeet pencils.)

    → 6:45 AM, Apr 18
  • ✏️ Day 17: Dixon

    close-up of Ticonderoga ferrules and erasers

    → 6:57 AM, Apr 17
  • Dixon

    Dixon pencils in a Mason jar.

    One of the most ubiquitous pencils in the US. When I was a kid, I tended to use other pencils more than Ticonderogas — the Venus Velvet, for example (and others to be mentioned later this month) — but these pencils were everywhere in school.

    And they’re still everywhere. There’s always a few in the jar in the kitchen for making grocery lists. I have dozens of newer Ticonderogas scattered around the house, both US-made:

    3 Ticonderogas

    …and newer ones from after the redesign and the move overseas:

    modern Ticonderogas

    And I have a few left from my childhood (these are probably forty or fifty years old):

    old Dixon pencils

    → 6:38 AM, Apr 17
  • ✏️ Day 16: Musgrave Tennessee Red.

    A box of Tennessee Red pencils

    → 6:22 AM, Apr 16
Page 1 of 3 Older Posts →
  • RSS
  • JSON Feed
  • Micro.blog