pencil talk | pencil reviews and discussion
exploring the art and science of pencils since 2005
Some major news – LAMY, a company renowned for the advanced industrial design of their fountain pens and mechanical pencils – have released a line of woodcase pencils.
Please enjoy the first views at Lexikaliker.
Let’s hope LAMY will offer wide distribution.
This blog is now coming to you from – somewhere, aka the cloud.
I hope it is faster. There may be a couple of things that don’t yet work.
Very tiny pencils. They didn’t survive the post office treatment:
For comparison, with a standard pencil:
They aren’t novelty pencils – they have a 9 to 5 job, filling out customer surveys.
Only about 2mm in diameter, they appear to be constructed like a regular pencil. I’ve never previously seen one.
My thanks to Sean for sending these my way.
The pencil talk laboratories took delivery of some Ito-ya pencils just over a year ago, and discovered that they were excellent for a house brand pencil. Of course the world’s largest stationery store is no ordinary “house”!
Ito-ya’s jumbo pencil is more than just a variant of the standard sized version.
Available in five very rich solid metallic finishes, the pencil presents itself very well.
To start with, the cap is a metal attachment painted black, not an eraser. I am so used to the regular sized pencils that I kept trying to use it as an eraser!
In a Faber-Castell rubberized Contour sharpener, sharpening this pencil is a joy. (And this is not the best sharpener.)
The cedar is just super straight grained, soft, and easy to sharpen. The pencil isn’t cheap, and the choice of wood must have been part of the cost equation.
The lead isn’t that of the regular pencil – it is a super dark and rich lead (a bit hard to erase) that might have some darkening ingredients apart from graphite.
All in all, a superb example of a jumbo or oversized pencil.
Name: BILT matrix.
Full name and model no: BILT Matrix Charcoal Black HB2.
Manufacturer: Ballarpur Industries Limited (biltpaper.com), incorporated under a previous name in 1945.
Background: Ballarpur’s website says they are India’s largest paper company.
Weight: The pencils in the box I received ranged from 4.2g to 5.2g, averaging 4.6g.
Dimensions: Rounded hexagon with finished cap. 174.5mm in length according to the box.
Appearance: The pencils are hexagonal and unsharpened. The pencil finish is black, with the edges finished in silver. The text is silver, as well as the cap. The unsharpened ends are clean, with no paint spilling over.
The pencil is marked:
bilt matrix Charcoal Black HB2
Other notes: The pencils have a stated price of 3 Rupees each.
Grip: The pencil has a light gloss and is quite comfortable and easy to hold.
Sharpening: Regular readers know I like Carl sharpeners. But the Carl sharpens everything well, so I tried the matrix in an Eisen handheld plastic sharpener. It felt a bit tough to sharpen, though the result was fine. The wood was unfamiliar to me, probably one of the many species native to India.
Writing: I found the pencil to be surprisingly good. On Rhodia paper, the lead seemed somewhat smooth and very stable and non-crumbling for a budget pencil.
Erasure: With a Pilot Foam eraser, removing lines was no problem. The natural rubber Faber-Castell 7041-20 required just a bit more effort.
Overall: While I’m not familiar with Ballarpur Industries, I think they’ve produced a fine product in the matrix pencil – the pencil presents well and has attractive packaging, and writes much better than one would expect from a product that is priced at about seven US cents.
I’d like to thank hemmant for kindly sending me these pencils last year, along with some other Indian pencils. They have been a pleasure to discover.
1. Martini Auctions
It is nice to know that there are alternatives to eBay.
What’s amazing to me is that Martini Auctions consistently has some of the absolutely rarest and most collectible pencil items around:
A Sterling Silver Faber-Castell TK 9400 Leadholder. Mentioned at leadholder.com, examples of this limited edition of 1948 are rarely seen. The asking price? €500. Ouch!
Eberhard Faber Cartograph pencils. These seem to be a variant of Landkartenstifte. Though incomplete and mismatched, it is still a fascinating historical item.
Lyra 190th anniversary pencil extender. Did you know that an established pencil manufacturer issued a luxury pencil extender some years before Faber-Castell?
These are just a few highlights. Alas, all somewhat expensive.
2. World Cup pencils
Faber-Castell has announced a special pencil for the 2010 World Cup!
It looks like it might be triangular in shape. I’m wondering if this will be part of a set of 24? That would be super-collectible, I would guess.
3. A pencil made from finger-joined slats, with two species of wood!
Woodchuck has mentioned the existence of these pencils before, but this is the first photo I’ve seen.
Remarkable!
Two wood finger joined pencil.
Seen at On the desk, at any time.