Musgrave pencils are still made in the U.S. Henry Hulan literally grew up in the pencil industry, with his Tennessee-based family business, Musgrave Pencil Company having celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2016. Making a good pencil is not as easy as it may seem. 2 Ticonderoga will deliver the marks correctly on scantron test sheets used widely in schools, which is one of the reasons Ticonderoga is the brand overwhelmingly preferred by teachers." "Exacting standards are used to produce pencils that write smoothly, without the scratchy feel of other pencil brands, and deliver consistent results. "Ticonderoga pencils are produced with premium wood from certified sustainable wood sources," Becky Trudeau, a product manager at Dixon Ticonderoga, said in 2017. I reached out to Dixon Ticonderoga, the company behind these pencils for its take on what makes a pencil special. "It is a bonus if they are already sharpened and a double bonus if they are that brand." "Ticonderogas are better but this teacher is just happy to get pencils!" adds Jodi Sorrells, who teaches fifth grade at Kennedy Elementary School in Winder, Georgia. " sharpen consistently without breakage and have the longest staying power when writing," says Ashley Johnessee, Ph.D., assistant principal at Lambert High School in Suwanee, Georgia. A pencil is a pencil is a pencil, right? Wrong, according to all the teachers I spoke with. Turns out that many parents are as befuddled as I. The extra leads make it a reusable tool too.Since I am nothing, if not a rule-follower, I opted to order Ticonderogas online, but I polled some friends for their take. It looks good, it does write without having to click or advance and the super-short lead exposure is particularly good for people who are heavy writers. I also would have preferred a wood casing to a plastic casing for the nice smell and the less likelihood of melting or cracking in severe weather but all-in-all I find it pleasing. I tend to prefer a 0.5mm pencil lead but this works fine and if you prefer the wider lead, this might be a great option. I wrote “Eraser works” next to the “Eraser works?” question and there is almost no evidence of the word at all so yes, the eraser works well. It seems to like to be a stubby little plastic tip. It does not keep the longer length though. I did figure out that you could trick the pencil into giving a longer bit of lead by pushing the conical tip up towards the pencil body a couple times. I did find it a little odd that only a fraction of the lead was sticking out of the plastic tip - more like a rollerball pen tip than a traditional mechanical pencil but as long as you don’t write or sketch at a severe angle, it never really presented a problem. I played with the pencil on and off all week at work trying to see it if ever showed no lead or too much lead but it didn’t. The way the pencil lead works is that everytime you lift the pencil a tiny bit more lead is made available. Only one lead can be added to the pencil as a time so this little tube is useful for being able to carry a few spares easily. ![]() There is a cap at the base end which will reveal the leads. When you unscrew the pencil at the eraser ferrule you can pull out the lead tube. What was not made quite clear on the packaging is that inside the pencil is a tube of spare leads. I admit that if it hadn’t been such a handsome pencil I probably wouldn’t have purchased it. It looks quite similar to a regular wood pencil though its actually a plastic body. The logo lettering is stamped in a green to match the ferrule and the ferrule has the classic yellow stripes painted. It has a classic hexagonal shape of a traditional wood pencil. The pencil contains 0.7mm HB #2 lead and is encased in a metallic silver body with a green metal ferrule and black eraser. ![]() It claims to be an auto-advancing so I had to see it worked. It came on a blister card as a set of two. ![]() One of the items I found was the Ticonderoga Sensematic Mechanical Pencil. I recently had a little excursion to the local Office Depot which requires a pass through the pen and pencil department no matter why I went in originally.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |