On buying some pencils

In lieu of my regular link sharing¹…please read this important newsletter article below.

My 5th grader did math² with a gel ink pen which would get me grounded “back in my day” or something equally heinous, so I asked her to get a pencil and she said she didn’t have any, even after we bought a whole bunch of them before school started, which I guess they give them out to the whole class or keep them in the classroom, which led me to the rainforest site to buy more pencils.

I bought a huge box of Ticonderoga pencils for $12 like a whole pack of packs that I could probably sell individually if I was a more enterprising New York hustler.

I stuffed them into the bottom drawer where my children are sure not to look for it, causing me to say “Have you looked in the bottom drawer?” when they inevitably say they looked in all the drawers for a pencil.

Here’s a photo of the pencils in the bottom drawer:

It says they are the world’s best, right there on the package and we know that anytime anyone says something like that they are most definitely telling the truth.

This past Friday, my wife had the day off and for some reason the kids had the day off and then I have every Friday off because I don’t have a job right now, and my wife said she wanted to “get out of the city” and so we decided to go to Beacon, New York, which is upstate, which means any other place in New York that’s not New York City and is not Long Island.

Beacon is vaguely artistic, because they have a huge art museum in a former Nabisco packaging plant, but we didn’t go there.

We did eat lunch and then later we ate pie, and then in the middle we went to this stationery store that had very nice pencils in it, which sorta makes sense because it’s an “art” town.

The real best pencil

My wife: “They have the pencils you like,” my wife said.

Me: “I don’t remember liking any particular pencil,” Isaid.

My wife: “No, you told me you liked the Blackwings,” she said.

I don’t remember liking or talking about these in any particular manner or but as I approached the “testing” table, I wrote with one of them and they are quite nice and smooth and the eraser looks like it was already chewed on.

Apparently, they are well-reviewed and well-loved.

And here’s the description from the website:

I’m not sure what a ferrule is and I’m not going to look it up right now, but if you haven’t guessed, I bought one of these pencils at the store and it was around $2.

It’s called the Blackwings Eras pencils and they are just one amazing Substack newsletter mention away from getting Taylor Swift’s attention and decimating TikTok and the Kansas City Chiefs to pieces.

Here’s the Blackwing Eras pencil I purchased (2 shots)

To be honest, I feel a bit nervous about sharpening and using it, but I know that day will come, I know it will.

Other best pencils

But then while I was in the shop, I noticed a few other brands of pencils that were manufactured in Shelbyville, Tennessee which is south of Nashville, where I used to live.

Apparently, they have a huge pencil factory there—the Musgrave Pencil Factory.

I didn’t know this, but my wife did, which made me think she knows a lot more about pencils than she’s letting on, and I was more pleased with this fact, that I could support a place hundreds of miles away that I never supported when I was less than 100 miles away, but that’s life I guess, and nostalgia is tricky in that way, that whole thing about being more appreciative of something when it’s gone.

So, here I am in a small town in New York state buying pencils from Tennessee.

And I really liked these pencils. I liked this Cub one the best, even more so than the Blackwing if I’m being honest, but maybe I just feel more affection for the Cub.

It’s one of those thicker pencils that I used to associate with little kids, but not one of those over-sized fat ones that an adult would never use, but it’s just a bit thicker and heartier.

It’s the 3030T model.³

Here’s a photo comparison of the Cub 3030T Model vs the Blackwing Eras.

Okay friends, but that’s not all, I bought one more pencil.

I think this one was the cheapest, but it was also from the Musgrave Pencil Co, and this is the Hermitage 520, Thin Blue.

This pencil is in fact blue and it has a white eraser, which generally I’m not a fan of.

But I just liked that it also said “Shelbyville, Tennessee” on it and the shape is octagonal with the bevels fitting nicely between your fingers much like the Blackwing.

However, after trying this one out, I’d say this is the workman’s pencil, the everyday pencil, nothing fancy here, just the facts ma’am to write down on your steno pad.

It’s not smooth like the Blackwing, it’s not artistic, this is the business pencil if you had to calculate facts and figures in your steno pad like it was in fact the 1960s.

This pencil is also clearly made in the U.S.A.⁴ and I like how the “B” in “Shelbyville” is filled in and also the “E” in “TENN”

It’s good for marking up books, apparently, which is something I do like to do.

Okay, here’s the comparison shot of all 3:

Now when I see them like this, that Cub face really stands out while also having all of the relevant information printed right there on top of it in case it ever gets lost and needs to be sent back to its maker.

Keep going-

Josh Spilker

1. Friends, I was going to write about the regular links but I didn’t read too much and I haven’t progressed much reading A Little Life (🤨) and then about my museum-goings (🫤), and then I even thought about writing about the election (👎) and then I finally came across a topic worthy of your attention…

2. Also, her math homework is only about 5 to 7 problems, which is a problem in my (math)book, but that’s a digression.

3. I don’t know what that means, but I thought I would write it down in the newsletter to make it seem like I have some expertise and then add this footnote to make you doubt my expertise

4. not USA, add periods. Please, have some respect