Over the course of 2018 we'll be highlighting pencil history from a new country each month. As we endeavor this year to get the best currently available pencils from every country that's still making them we thought we'd share some of the stories that make them special.

When it comes to pencil history there's a story about a company called L&C Hardtmuth that can't be avoided. You probably know it as Koh-i-Noor (the name they go by now)-- I've always know about their products mostly because of the cool woodless pencils I loved when I was in high school. Through their footprint in the US has more to do with art materials that aren't wood-cased pencils, their history is important to the story of the pencil.

L&C Hardtmuth was founded in Austria by Josef Hardtmuth in 1792, who was known as an innovative stoneware maker. In 1840s the company relocated to Budweis, in what is now the Czech Republic. This was during a time where, as we know well, the pencil business was still new and growing all over Europe. With his knowledge of ceramics, Josef Hardtmuth is said to have invented and patented the kiln-fired graphite and clay pencil core at the same time as Nicholas Conté, a claim which I can't confirm either way. This is a bit of a trend with Koh-i-Noor historically--they were consistently coming up with new ideas at the same time as other major players in the pencil business, both claiming ownership of them. In most cases, it's the Hardtmuths who are forgotten or discredited. When writing my book, The Pencil Perfect a couple of years ago this was a subject I struggled with researching. On a personal level, I wanted this "underdog" of sorts, this smaller Czech pencil company to rightfully claim all of these innovations but the truth is, there's no proper documentation to verify any of it 100%. I choose to think that there's some truth to all of it and that these stories are still worth telling, even if they're overshadowed by those bigger and more influential. 

All of that considered and set aside, Josef Hardtmuth was a really smart man with a lot of ambition and imagination who was right on the cutting edge of all of this new technology. This includes the pencil grading scale--as Koh-i-Noors written history claims, it was L&C Hardtmuth who came up with the idea of the European pencil grading model. "B" stands for Budweis, "H" stands for Hardtmuth and "F" stands for Franz, the member of the Hardtmuth family who is said to have come up with all of this. Though this challenges the commonly believed story that it was the Germans who came up with this ("B"for bold, "H" for hard and "F" for firm) I like to think that the Hardtmuth's were the first.

Everything changed in 1889 at the World's Fair in Paris when L&C Hardtmuth debuted the Koh-i-Noor 1500, their brand new polygrade set of drawing pencils. It was named for the Koh-i-Noor diamond and was made in 17 different grades, which was unheard of at the time. The thing that was most shocking about the 1500, however, was the way it was designed. The pencil was painted with 14 coats of rich yellow painted and dipped in 14-carat gold on the end. It's important to realize that at the time the world's best pencils typically weren't painted at all--it was assumed that if a pencil was painted it was to cover up inferior wood quality. If a pencil was made with high quality wood it was left as is to show off the wood grain. 

The Koh-i-Noor 1500 was such a success that it was also shown at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 and was an instant hit with the American pencil market. L&C Hardtmuth eventually set up an office in New Jersey and changed their business name to Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth. American pencil companies started painted their pencils yellow to mimic the color of the superior Koh-i-Noor too, which is mostly likely why the color yellow has become synonymous with American pencils. It's believed that L&C Hardtmuth originally chose the color yellow because of its connotations of royalty and respect in Chinese culture, as the best graphite was coming from China in the 19th century. 

These days Koh-i-Noor is still a celebrated pencil brand, especially for their proprietary Magic pencils and quality drawing tools.They're one of the only manufacturers in the world who still make proper natural rubber erasers, too. They've become a great example of an iconic brand whose history is full of legend, mystery and drama. Did Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth really invent all of these critical pencil developments? Who knows what the real truth is. What we do know is that things were different in the 19th century--news travelled slowly and it's very possible that many people just happened to be doing the same thing at the same time. 

If you ever find yourself in Prague, be sure to visit one of Koh-i-Noor's three shops, one of which is in the zoo!

One of the best things about my shop is that you can find pencils from places you didn't even know make pencils. Before I first opened the shop I sent a LOT of emails to companies I knew about or had researched and got replies from about 30% of them. The ones who replied were a little confused but willing to sell their things to me and by the time I was ready to put the website online I had enough brands to support my concept. Since then I've still been chasing that 70%, a number that has multiplied as I've grown to know more. 

These days sourcing goes one of two ways: either a brand has heard of the shop and reaches out to me to sell their things or I have beg and plead to get the things that I'm after. It's not easy anymore because we already have all of the things that are easy. This year I'm making it my mission to add a few specific countries to the list of those represented in pencils in our shop and man, it's proving to be very difficult. For every 10 emails I send I maybe get one reply, which often tells me that they can't sell to me because I'm in the US or that the thing that I want is no longer available. For the other 9, who knows what happens to them when they go unanswered and possibly unread. Maybe it's a language difference (or not, on my second attempt I always translate the e-mails) or maybe these websites don't have active e-mail addresses on them (though I do try to gather as many e-mail addresses as I can from various resources) or maybe they just think I'm insane, or it's a scam or they're simply not interested in participating in my wacky microcosm of pencils. 

I've given up on my dream to stock a pencil from every country still manufacturing them (it's more than anyone realizes, I can guarantee) and some of them aren't good pencils anyway but to the ones that I really really want: what do I have to do? Maybe there's nothing I can do and I need to just accept that. After all, I do have *most* of the pencils I think are the most interesting/best ones out there but I so desperately want to expose all of our customers to the deep cuts--the ones from far far away that few know about or have tried. To be honest, it's occasionally frustrating when I get e-mail from people wondering why we don't stock a certain pencil because the answer is usually because they won't sell them to me (or because they're just not very good). 

Now that I've whined about this, let me say that I am lucky to work in a very very small industry where people are generally so so so so supportive and the encouragement I get from the companies that I do already stock is enormous enough to make up for not having the rest. But, where's the fun if I don't have something to chase after? I guess I'll be chasing all of these elusive pencil brands for as long as I'm doing this and that's fine with me. One of my totally ridiculous dreams is to have a travel TV show about stationery, a Netflix-style docu-series about me traveling the globe in search of the most fascinating stationery stories and the items that go with them, maybe then I can get their attention. 

Photo: a recent example from my inbox 

If case we haven't told you enough times on social media, April was National Letter Writing Month, which is a month that we are always particularly eager to participate in. A lot of avid letter writers number their letters for April with the goal of writing one a day for the whole month. I didn't do this because I'm not organized enough and also because I tend to binge write, but I did have two goals this letter-writing season: to use pencil as much as possible and to use up as many of the stamps from my embarrassingly large stamp binder as I could. When sending our weekly e-mail to the team a couple of weeks ago, I challenged each of them to write a letter and to try to use pencil exclusively. 

Writing a letter in pencil is an extremely pleasurable thing to do, especially if you've been thoughtful about the type of pencil you're using on the particular paper you've chosen. I like a good Japanese HB for writing letters and love to use paper with some cotton in it if I have it around (hint: Muji makes a really great/really cheap cotton writing pad) or a Caran d'Ache 3B on old school onion skin. Smudging is only really a concern if you're folding your paper more than once or writing on the back. For that, use a pencil in an F or #3 grade so nothing gets too messy. If you are writing on the back of something make sure that you're not doing it in a stack so it doesn't transfer. 

The actual letter aside, the biggest challenge when writing a letter with pencil is the envelope. The USPS machines and letter carriers have to be able to read it, making dark envelopes a challenge (white colored pencils are good for this and extra pretty for holiday cards) or toothy envelopes that will be smudge-prone. You best option is using a white envelope and a harder pencil OR fixing the pencil with a fixative from an art supply store or spraying it with hairspray, which is what we use in the shop. Colored pencils are great for addressing too, just make sure it's not water soluble because a good quality water soluble pencil will bleed immediately when met with water or rain. 

One of my FAVORITE ways to address an envelope is with rainbow pencil, specifically this one. The most important thing when addressing an envelope in rainbow pencil is that there is something in the envelope when you do it so you don't get weird creases where the envelope lines are on the back--this is especially visible with rainbow pencil. I usually slide a piece of cardboard or a small book or catalog in the envelope when I'm addressing it. If you purchase your postage stamps on the USPS website, each sheet comes in its own bag with a backing card--these backing cards are excellent for this! 

I've mailed envelopes that are either barely legible or just look totally insane many time and I'm always impressed that they do actually get delivered 90% of the time. Get creative! After all, no one hates a handwritten letter or a well decorated envelope. 

Photos (from the top), mail by Olivia, Esther, Alyx and Caroline. 

In February we announced that we were starting a book club in our shop because, you know, everyone needs extracurricular activities. And admittedly I've always wanted to have my very own book club. The night it was my mom's turn to host her book club's meeting was also always the one day a year that we were very strictly banished to the upstairs. I always wondered what they were doing down there until I realized that they were just drinking wine and gossiping mostly. I knew that when we decided to have our own book club it'd be different (not that there's anything wrong with a good ol' mom book club, I hope to have one of those some day too). 

We're only doing one book every two months so there's plenty of time for members and followers to read at their own pace. Our March/April selection was 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, a lovely and short exchange of letters. For our second book we're about to get a little more serious. In May/June we'll be reading Census by Jesse Ball, a novel that was just published in March. 

Let me just back up for a second a tell a quick story: the summer before my first year of college was also the summer when I learned to really really love reading. I'd always read quite a lot but this was the summer when I started to realize what exactly my taste in books was. When I first arrived in London for school I went to an internet deep dive searching for new books to read and landed on one called Samedi the Deafness, the first book Jesse Ball published. It arrived to my dorm in an Amazon box and I devoured it in two days. Its form was one I'd never seen before in a novel (unconventional, to say the least) and the story felt distant and totally engrossing at the same time. I had never read a book that made me think as much or one that stuck with me for as long as Samedi the Deafness did. I immediately ordered Jesse's other book The Way Through Doors and then patiently waited for more. 

Fast forward about 10 years and many more books later and I can still say that Jesse Ball is my favorite contemporary writer. His books always challenge the way I read and surprise me, which is about all I can ask from a good book. 

When Census first came out, Alyx (also a big fan) and I went to Books are Magic to see Jesse in conversation and to buy our copies of the book. Having read it already I can tell you that the story is most likely unlike any you've read before and is one that you may not love from the very beginning but do stick with it. It's tremendously rewarding. Census follows the journey of a sick, widowed father and his son who has Down syndrome as they travel an unnamed country as census takers. One of the things that I love about Jesse Ball's stories is that they lack a lot of the details that a reader might usually find necessary but develop in a way that is so thorough and perplexing that you end up accepting the things you don't know, understanding that their absence is part of the story. They're absolutely mind-bending and unforgettable. I won't say any more but if you need the New York Times to also convince you that this book is worth reading, click here. 

Some important information: 

Our pencil pairing for this selection the MD Paper Products pencil, chosen for its excellent quality and nondescript, minimal look. 

We'll be hosting a meet-up for Census on June 27th, so mark your calendar if you're in NYC! We send periodic book club e-mails, if you'd like to be on our list please let us know (info@cwpencils.com or DM us on Instagram).

Over the course of 2018 we'll be highlighting pencil history from a new country each month. As we endeavor this year to get the best currently available pencils from every country that's still making them we thought we'd share some of the stories that make them special.

When it comes to pencils it's hard to beat those that are made in Japan. I'm supposed to be unbiased about these things but have you tried a Tombow Mono 100?! From the precision of its construction to the paint finish to the ultra smooth core, it's nothing short of fantastic. While the history of pencils in Japan doesn't reach back nearly as far as it does in countries like Germany or the US, it's still full of stories. 

In Japan there are two main pencil makers: Mitsubishi Pencil Company and Tombow. Both make many other things now that they are arguably more known for (Mitsubishi makes all of the Uni-ball products and Tombow makes loads of pens and correction tape) but both got their start with the humble wood-cased pencil. But first let's backtrack or second. Pencils have been manufactured in Japan since the late 1800s and were first recognized during the Great Depression when Japan started exporting imitations of American pencils to east coast shores. There was a lot of controversy surrounding this because not only were they not labelled "Made in Japan" but they were disruptive to the already fragile US pencil market, one which was also in its infancy. After the second World War, trade lines were limited and Japanese pencils stayed in Japan for the most part. 

Similarly to how US pencils were once regulated based on their characteristics and price, Japanese pencils had to fall under certain very specific categories. In order to be priced a certain way, each pencil model had to be designated for a specific purpose based on quality and physical characteristics. Drafting pencils, writing pencils, drawing pencils, general use pencils and photo retouching pencils all had to be clearly marked with their classification on the back. Even now, most Japanese pencils have their classification printed on the back, even though it's not necessary anymore. 

Mitsubishi (founded 1887) and Tombow (founded 1913) started to give Japanese pencils a good name by developing quality pencil under their own brand names. For Mitsubishi it was the 9800 pencil and for Tombow the 8900 pencil, both of which still exist today and look almost he same as they originally did. From the beginning both brands were in clear competition with each other in their design choices and product development. In the 1950s Tombow made the Homo-graph pencil  (which was meant to be their new high-tech, fancy pencil) only for Mitsubishi to introduce their competitive Uni very shortly after. In an effort to make something even better, the brands rolled out their respective Mono 100 and Hi-Uni pencils shortly after. If you've even seen either of these beauties, you know what I'm talking about when is say that the attention to detail on every part of the pencil is absolutely impeccable. Tombow's Mono 100 is especially nice--it was designed by renowned graphic designer Takashi Kono and features a graphite core that has 10 billion particles per square millimeter (read: SMOOTH!). The Mono 100 and the Hi-Uni are both, to this day, some of the very nicest pencils money can buy. Buy a dozen of either and you'll find that they even come in carefully designed re-useable plastic boxes. 

At the height of Japanese pencil manufacture in the mid 20th century there were 125 individual pencil companies in operation--a far cry from the handful that are still around today. Among them is Kita-boshi Pencil Company, a family business founded by the Sugitani family in the 1940s and Camel Pencil Company which is known for their trademark minimalist, ferrule-less attached eraser. These days the pencil factories remaining in Japan manufacture their own lines but also the pencils of other brands looking for that Japanese quality.  Kita-boshi's factory (on the outskirts of Tokyo) regularly hosts public visits where they show how their pencils are made and share their sustainability initiatives. They re-use the cedar dust and wood-chips from making pencils to make paint and clay! 

Japanese pencils will always have a reputation for being unbeatably consistent and well designed. Though they make many of the world's most serious pencils, they're also responsible for some of the most fun ones. Eye Ball Pencil Company churns out over 100 novelty styles that are of surprisingly excellent quality. Should you ever find yourself in Japan you must visit Ito-ya, an obligatory department store-esque stationery shop but where I think things are more interesting are in the normal, everyday shops. You'll learn very quickly that the general dedication to good writing tools in Japan in absolutely incomparable to any other place. 

One of my all-time favorite quotes about pencils comes from Mr. Sugitani of Kita-boshi: "A pencil sacrifices itself to serve people. Both humans and pencils need cores." 

PS. If you're interested in falling down a couple of Japanese pencil rabbit holes, Google Tombow train pencils or kohitsu shosha pencils--you're in for a treat!  

A lot of technology goes into pencils that most people don't think about; there's the core which needs a certain ratio of clay and graphite, how the wood slats come together to form the barrel of the pencil, the formula used to make a good, and much more. Today's pencil laboratory experiment was regarding water-soluble pencils, which have an obvious science-related trait: water solubility.

EXPERIMENT 1

The goal of this experiment was to see what would happen to water-soluble pencils when placed in water for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, I neglected to choose a pencil that wasn't labeled as water-soluble for additional experimentation, but who cares about non-water-soluble pencils in water? They don't have applications in water and this was more of an exploration of an object that is commonly used in companion with water.

During this exploration, there were two pencils chosen, both from my favorite brand, Caran d'Ache:

1. Supracolor II Soft in Scarlet 070
2. Technalo Water-Soluble Pencil in HB

These seemed to be the optimal choices for this exploration. The Supracolors are well-known to be one of the best choice for watercolor art and the Technalo has a  graphite-based core. With two very contrasting pencils, unified by their water-soluble trait, these two pencils were optimal for this exploration.

Materials

• 2 tall glasses, 15.1 cm tall and 0.9 cm diameter
• 2 water soluble pencils, 17.5 cm in height, 0.7 cm diameter, 0.3 cm diameter core
• tap water, sourced from CWPE's sink, room temperature ~25˚C

Process

1. water poured into the glass until it reaches 10 cm in height
2. leave the glasses with water out for five minutes
3. get cups placed appropriately for picture taking
4. place pencils in
5. after a minute, swirl the pencils continuously for 30 seconds
6. wait and observe

Left: water in cups before placing pencils; right: after pencils placed in water

Left: after 30 seconds of swirling; right: one week after the start of the experiment

Left: Supracolor after 30 seconds of swirling; right: Supracolor one week after the start of the experiment

Split wood of both pencils

Thoughts & Conclusions

I really thought the way the wood split was interesting. Even before the wood had split, the sharpened, exposed part of the core also got larger. Perhaps that was the reason why the core split. Another explanation could be the glue that holds the two slats of the barrel together was affected by the water, but an experiment on a non-water-soluble pencil would have to be done. The pencil's wood and glue would have to be the same.

Although there was a lack of a control pencil (one that had all the elements of both these pencils aside from a water-soluble core), there's no way that a proper control could've been chosen. As you can probably see from the wide variety of pencils sold in the shop, even just by Caran d'Ache, it would be unlikely to find that perfect control pencil.

I actually ended up painting with the Supracolor core; after I cut the barrel in half, I used a brush with a water cartridge to paint with the Supracolor core. After the pencil was submerged for so long, the core was almost like an extremely thick, pigmented paint. I painted on my Standard Notebook in Mint by Iron Curtain Press and you can seriously tell that the core was very pigmented and vibrant. I also attempted to paint with the Technalo but that was fairly difficult; although I was able to coerce some pigment onto my brush, it was nowhere near as dark as if I wrote with the pencil. 

My conclusion is that these water-soluble pencils are truly water-soluble, although some more than others. The Supracolor performed better than I expected and almost seems like the pencil has a core of dehydrated watercolor paint. The Technalo is obviously not as water-soluble due to its graphite base, but it still performed decently.

Future experiments in water-soluble colored pencils would be how different colors of Supracolors dissolve and whether there are differences in a, say, purple Supracolor versus a red Supracolor. Maybe certain colors, because of their different pigments, have varying levels of solubility. Another experiment could be done with Prismalos or Swisscolors, which are water-soluble pencils by Caran d'Ache.

My next plan for an experiment: rehydrating a dry eraser (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've used a vintage pencil with a problem like this)

March is always a busy month for us because not only does it include National Pencil Day, but also the anniversary of our shop opening. Last year it was especially nuts because my book also came out in March right in the middle of everything else. 

Every year we celebrate a birthday it feels less important to draw attention to it. One year is fun to celebrate because it's the first one but until 5 or 10 or 25 it doesn't seem like it's something we should be making a huge deal about. This year, we ran a promo online and in-store, had yellow marbled balloons blown up,  we out to Korean BBQ and karaoke after work. It all felt especially appropriate and suitable for three years.

There was one problem, though: I forgot the actual day that the shop opened. For some reason we all had it in our heads that it was March 16th, so that's what we planned for. When I was working on a blog post I went waaaaaaaay back to our very first in-store purchases in our POS, checked the 2015 calendar (I remembered it was a Tuesday) and confirmed that it was actually March 11th. I can't believe I got this wrong (and embarrassingly enough, this isn't the first time I've been unsure of this). At the end of the day, though, who cares anyway? I've written it down in my planner for next year and will hopefully remember but maybe we'll just start saying it's the second week of March and leave it at that.

Amidst all of this I went in search of my box of vintage pencils from my personal collection, which I couldn't find in either of the two places I was sure it'd be. Fortunately it was spring cleaning week in the shop and we'd planned to unpack those last couple of boxes in the basement and get really organized. I felt like there was no way I wouldn't find it as we turned the shop inside out. As it turns out, I was wrong. The box definitely isn't at the shop and it definitely isn't at home--it has somehow vanished. It's baffling to me that this happened and also really really sad, but man, has it taught me a lesson of keeping track of things that are important to me! I still have a sliver of hope that it'll materialize one day but until then I guess I'm going to have to start rebuilding my collection. The only good thing that has come of this is that everything is now extremely organized and I am very aware of the locations of all of the rest of my possessions. 

I once dated someone who told me that he was never angry when he lost things he cared about because he was sure that they ended up in the hands of someone else who would appreciate them as much as he did, just in a different way. I'm not sure that I believe this, but it's a nice thing to think about when I'm beating myself up over losing something. 

After all of this and a really cold and snowy March I'm looking forward to an April that actually feels like spring and one during which I'll make less stupid mistakes and lose less things. 

Over the course of 2018 we'll be highlighting pencil history from a new country each month. As we endeavor this year to get the best currently available pencils from every country that's still making them we thought we'd share some of the stories that make them special.

As the story goes when I talk about why I opened a pencil shop, it all started with a tin of Caran d'Ache colored pencils I received when I was a child. In the past 100 years, pencil manufacture has become a point of in Switzerland for its one and only brand. Originally called Fabrique Genevoise de Crayons, Switzerland's only pencil company was taken over by shareholder Arnold Schweitzer in 1915. At this period of time there were several other burgeoning pencil companies in Europe and there wasn't much to set this small Geneva based brand a part. Schweitzer made a great effort to re-brand and modernize and in 1924 re-named the company Caran d'Ache, after the pen-name of Russian-French political cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (the name is a Franco-fied version of karandash, the Russian word for pencil). This wasn't really a decision based on the intention to dedicate the brand to Poiré but rather a way to use a recognizable name to mark a brand focused on innovation, playfulness and quality (don't worry--the Schweitzers paid royalties to Poiré's family).

In the couple of decades that followed, Caran d'Ache grew out of just making wood-cased graphite pencils and made some seriously important contributions to the course of pencil development. The first was the Fixpencil--the very first clutch pencil. It was designed by Swiss engineer Carl Schmid in anticipation for another world war as a solution in case cedar supplies became scarce: a more sustainable, reusable pencil. What made his different than other mechanical-type pencils on the market at the time was its propelling tip or clutch mechanism. It featured (and still does) a hexagonal body, mimicking a wood-cased pencil and a 2mm lead, the same size as that of a regular pencil core. These types of pencils are generally used these days by draftsmen and are sharpened with a lead pointer. In 2005 the Swiss Post Office even issued a postage stamp to commemorate the Fixpencil. 

The next big thing came in 1931: the Prismalo pencil, the first water-soluble pencil. These firm colored pencils could be worked into with a paintbrush to create a sort of watercolor effect, something that was brand new to the pencil market. The composition of colored pencils is complicated to begin with and requires a more careful manufacturing process than graphite pencils do, so finding a way to make them with water soluble wax was big news. There are a lot of great water soluble pencils on the market now, but the Prismalo is still around and is still a best-seller in Switzerland. 

As Caran d'Ache started branching out into other artist supplies like wax pastels and luxury goods like limited edition fountain pens its history in graphite and wood is still very much at its very core. It's fun to go to Switzerland and see how impactful one pencil company has been on Swiss manufacturing and consumerism. You'll find Caran d'Ache in the airport duty free shops, at the post office, in the supermarket--everywhere. There certainly aren't many brands out there that are as focused on heritage and national pride as Caran d'Ache is.  They even make pencils out of wood from non-pencil-wood trees that grow in Switzerland. Maybe that's just a very Swiss thing--think about about the amount of pride that comes with other Swiss-made things like watches and chocolate. 

This year I'm spending a lot of time researching pencil brands made in different countries than the ones I'm already familiar with and what I'm learning is that there are so many countries that really only have one brand, or if they have many there's always one that stands apart from the rest and it seems that this is ofter for good reason. The cool thing is that a lot of these brands are still owned by the families who founded them--Caran d'Ache is owned by badass lady boss Carole Hubscher of the fourth generation. I promise I'll share some of my new brand discoveries later this year, but for now I hope you're enjoying the stories of those we already know.