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—

Fourteen FCs—

But only three of my beloved 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.

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:

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

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

After they had closed their NYC storefront and shortly before they suspended their online shop, I ordered a bunch of pencils from CW Pencils, including a dozen Musgrave Tennessee Reds. It was kind of an impulse buy, like candy at the checkout, but I had been persuaded (by Pencil Revolution and the Weekly Pencil) that these were pencils worth getting.

And they are just gorgeous.

I knew going in that this early run was marred by uneven cores, which was true for three or four in my dozen.

But I didn’t care. It was worth it for the Red Cedar. This wood is intensely aromatic, with a rich spicy scent. It summons deep memories of old wardrobes and chests. You can still buy small blocks of Red Cedar to put in drawers with your wool clothes, since its oil repels moths. (Or maybe it kills the larvae? I don’t know — dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor not an entomologist!)

In the 1800s and through about the 1920s or 30s, it was also the most common wood for pencils. Shortages (among other reasons) eventually led to it being replaced by Incense Cedar.

Of the original dozen, I set aside the several with really bad off-center cores, then my wife snatched some up, and I’ve got two or three nearby. As usual, a little darker than I like, and the erasers are pretty terrible — but my goodness, what lovely pencils.