I have burned through a lot of pencils in the last several months. This leads to an interesting paradox: I desire pencils that write well, but are also easily to replenish in terms of both money and effort spent to acquire them.

Before I got my hands on the very-hip Palomino Blackwing models, my intro (back) into the world of pencils was the classic yellow Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. I chose that one simply because it appeared to be the highest-quality one that the office supply store had available. I enjoyed writing with it so much that I decided to stop hassling with ink pens and make the switch to graphite for my daily writing needs.

But pencils still had a stigma attached to them — weren’t wooden pencils for little kids? So I did some reading, which eventually led me to Blackwing pencils. After using one of those, I realized how faint and scratchy the graphite in the Ticonderoga pencils was in comparison to the smooth, dark lines of the Blackwing. I was sold, and I was never going back.

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