From Mitsubishi and Faber-Castell, we have pre-shortened versions of the Uni and Castell 9000 pencils.
They are meant for use in pencil holders from these firms.
The Uni is unsharpened, while the 9000 has a factory sharpening. Both are sold in packages of three.
Stroke of genius by the pencil marketers, huh? charge more for smaller pencils. All kidding aside, they are both fine products.
I just recently started chopping Palominos in half to fit inside the Steadtler 900 25 pencil holder. Though I do intend to own both the Mitsubishi and non-plastic Faber Castel holders eventually, I am 100% pleased with the Palomino+900 25 experience.
Primitiveworker.
That makes two of us (except that I only own the Faber Castell extenders) – there must be a marked for short Palominos :-). BTW Where IS the rest of the slate? Ultra short pencils?:-)
regards
Henrik
A couple years ago I bought about 100 Black Warriors on sale for around 5 cents each. Given that cheap price, I have overcome my hesitation and I whack the first couple inches off ’em when I first sharpen them. (I also whittle out the *stupid* hearts logo and black over the scar with a sharpie.) Shorter pencils are better. I pack them in a pocket-saving Kutsuwa extender/protector.
These pencils are like our jeans, we all want that well used look but we don’t want to spend the time ourselves in breaking them in to do so. Ever since I handled my first pencil the end goal, the driving force, the wonderful addiction of creation and communication was to end up with a stub. A pencil is like a tootsie pop, how many licks, or in the pencil’s case sharpenings, does it take to get to the center?
When it comes to my Perfect Pencils and all my other extenders it is the fact that I have lovingly and remorselessly used a new pencil until it is short enough to be used in one of my pencil extenders that creates that sense of extreme satisfaction. With any of my pencil extenders, but especially the Perfect Pencil, I can use a pencil until it is less than one inch in length, now that’s a sense of accomplishment. Now and then I find a tin full of my pencil stubs, from some time or other throughout my life, and the memories of all the things that I used those stubs for come flashing back in a flood of pride and accomplishment.
On the other hand sometimes I just want to cheat and make people think that I’ve been caught up in a furry of creativity and I’ll shove one of these shorter pencils into my Perfect Pencil or Hi-uni extender and make up a fantastical story of all the things my unused Perfect Pencil replacement pencil was used for even though I know it hasn’t even been sharpened yet.