With thanks to Staedtler staff in Canada, Germany, and Thailand, there is further news on the EE grade pencil.
After the EB and EE grades were withdrawn, Staedtler Malaysia continued making those versions for their market, with graphite cores supplied from Germany. This production ended in 2005.
At present, some of the 8B pencils made in Germany are stamped EE for the Asian market. Staedtler still makes the EE grade pencil!
The photos show a box of the former EE from Staedtler Malaysia.
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Wow, 8B, that’s like a sharpie lol.
So were you able to get hold of a new box of EE pencils? that would be amazing
Seems like a consumer-help factor, I’d be confused if I had used lettered-scale pencils all my life and then changed to a weird number/letter scale.
Aww, man!
I was wondering why I’m having a harder time finding these pencils. I still have a couple-a those EB EE and EF pencils on stock but I guess, that’s it, after they’re gone there’s no way I can get them anymore.
I found a couple-a those 8B pencils but they’re just a darker B pencils, not one of them soft leads like the EE ones. :(
I have fiends all over looking for EB or EE pencils.
I do not understand the “replacement” of EB with 8B! It is not a replacement…just like you can’t replace a dog with a fish.
8B…ugly silver toned black in my drawings…I do not like it…it’s making me really frustrated that the only life on my drawing table is in one and a half inched of EB.
Why is it sold only in Malaysia??? Why are they so special and how can I get some from over there? ebay is no help… and the net is coming up empty so far.
:(
We are a bunch of fiends! :>)))
I am from malaysia. i still have an old box of staedler mars EE pencils that i bought at least 20 years ago there. recently i live in indonesia. up till now i can still easily buy the EE and EB pencils in bigger book shops. the new EE is not as sticky as the old ones. the EB feels like somewhere between EE and 6 or 8B. i still like the EE they sell now. it’s dark and hard enough that it doesn’t break easily, unlike the 6 or 8 Bs
I wondered also, so I emailed STAEDTLER headquarters in Germany and this is their reply:
The difference between the degrees 7B/8B and the other degrees of the Lumograph pencils is that the two softest ones indeed contain carbon black whereas for the other ones graphite is used for the blackness (7B contains carbon black as well as a small quantity of graphite; 8B only contains carbon black and no graphite). Carbon black allows a deeper black which is often demanded by artists.
Hi, i do not know if anyone would be able to help, but i need to find out for someone about the hardness of pencil leads, so i have a EE, EB, 6B and 5B grades of leads, i can imagine 6B to be the softest but which is the Hardest.
your help would be highly apriciated.
Well! Ijust need to know that what does EE stands for. What is full form of EE.
E stands for “Extra”. At first, the softest Lumograph was named EX-EXB which stood for Extra-ExtraBlack (which is equivalent to today’s 8B); it was later shortened to Ex-ExB and then to EE.
Staedtler EB and EE pencils are undoubtedly the best I’ve found for fine art purposes. Used with charcoal in life drawing they give you an extra gear. They greatly increase tonal range without the tendency to shine or reflect -which anything over 2B does. This and the sizes of their cores make them excellent artist’s tools.
While teaching in a Norwegian art school I discovered no one had heard of them. I gave my stock away thinking ‘I’ll get more when back in Glasgow’. Alas this was not so easy.
my advice:-
Do anything to get your hands on them, to my best knowledge they are unique.
Come on Staedtler.
Are you still interested for the Starter EE?