I have spent just shy of 10 years (wowsers) focused on the fountain pen. My first was a Pilot MR that I picked up from Staples and my most recent was a “Carbon Chain” from Analog Notes. My fountain pen and ink exploration has brought products from makers and manufacturers around the world to my writing desk: Japan, China, South Korea, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Australia, the US and more. My collection has also swelled over this time, including over 50 pens and over 100 inks. It’s been a wild ride, and one I’m excited to continue.
With that said, my most recent stationery purchases haven’t been fountain pens, paper, or inks (the “fountain pen trifecta”). Frankly, I have enough of all three to last over a decade, and I’m doing what I can to avoid purchasing more! If those aren’t what I’ve been focusing on, what is? Pencils! I’ve scooped up a number of pencils over the last few months, from specialty vendors like JetPens to more local options like Daiso. Why have I taken a detour into pencils, you ask? There are simple reasons and more complex ones. Said reasons can be broken into three categories: economic, nostalgic, and, “form, function, and fun.” Let’s discuss each in turn.
FORM, FUNCTION, AND FUN
Fountain pens are great, but they require a level of care and attention in their use. To be clear, I see this as a feature and not a bug. I like that using fountain pens slows me down and lets me think more deeply. I also like the ritual associated with fountain pens: the filling, the cleaning, the intentionality. They are not perfect for every situation, though. It’s well-known among the fountain pen community that trying to use them on carbon copy paper is a fool’s errand. The same goes with using a fountain pen on the cheap paper many have lying around in their printers or at work.
A pencil, by contrast, has no such issue. While I’m not filling out any critical documents in pencil, I am using them to edit manuscripts: articles like this one, short stories, and some of the longer-form fiction I’ve written. I find editing with a pencil much more enjoyable than editing on the computer, even if the latter can be done more quickly. I’m less distracted using a pencil, which is critical for me. A pencil is also perfect for line-level editing (removing erroneous words, correcting spelling and punctuation, etc). I also like using it to leave comments, be they a reminder to fact check something or to add a thought or line of inquiry.
Another bonus is that pencils, generally speaking, work with the accessories and accoutrements I already have. They fit into pen cases. They slot into pen storage and pen trays. They can play with my paper collection, even if pencil leads do not have the same properties as fountain pens (e.g. shimmer, sheen, and shading).
Though this is a small digression, why do I care about the special properties of a fountain pen? Aside from what I’ve mentioned above, I want my fountain pens (and inks) to inspire me. I want them to connect me to a great lineage of human thinkers and creatives. I want to be able to admire their beauty. I want to be able to say that a particular pen is uniquely mine, or that I am part of a prestigious club of owners, or at the very least that I have the taste / discernment to pick a special writing instrument.
By comparison, what do I want from a pencil? I want it to be comfortable in my hand. I want it to mark consistently and erase cleanly. It has a job, and I expect it to do that job well. My preference is less for flash and more for understated substance. With that in mind, the drafting pencil is my favorite type of mechanical pencil both because of its tendency toward a more industrial design language and also because it offers features absent from the typical, garden-variety pencil. Most notably, this includes a knurled grip and a lead type indicator. What’s the deal with lead types? That’ll require a quick aside.
AN ASIDE: LET’S TALK LEAD
First and foremost, pencil leads are not made of lead; they are a mixture of clay and graphite. Second, lead grades occur on a spectrum from 10H to 10B. “H” style leads have more clay in their composition, are harder, and put down a color closer to white as the number goes up. 10H is a very, very light shade of gray. “B” style leads, by comparison, contain more graphite, are softer, and put down a darker line. They also tend to break more easily and are more prone to smudging. For a deeper dive on the topic, check out JetPen’s write-up on the topic.
A visual artist might make use of the whole spectrum of H to B in a given drawing. For my part as a writer, I rarely use a lead harder than HB, which is considered a “middle ground” between H and B. I typically choose 2B or 4B, depending on what’s available, but I still have more experimentation to do in that realm. As one final aside: in my experience colored leads are not graded in the same way; the packaging shows the color of the lead and that’s it. Go figure. With leads addressed, let’s talk economics.
ECONOMICS
The most expensive pen that I own is either my Pilot Custom Urushi (which streets in the US for around $1600 but can be found on the grey and secondary market for half that) or my Conid Kingsize Bulkfiller (which I bought in the late 2010s for about $1000 and for which I could probably sell for around the same price). None of the pencils I own cost even a tenth that price! Most are closer to 1/100th! Does a super-spendy $1000 pencil exist? I’m sure it does. Do I have any interest in actually buying it? Absolutely not!
In the same vein, I know some fountain pen legacy brands like Pelikan, Kaweco, and Montblanc have pencils in their line-up. Honestly, though, they don’t excite me. If I were to buy a writing utensil from any of the aforementioned brands, it’d be the fountain pen. What’s more, I’d only buy said brands on the secondary market; the depreciation on these brands (especially MB and Pelikan) is nothing to scoff at. Setting these brands aside, what other options are there for pencils?
Some of the “big names” in the fountain pen market also make pencils, from the truly affordable to more upscale offerings; Pilot and LAMY both come to mind in that regard. They are far from the only players, however. A few pencil manufacturers at the top of mind are: the Mitsubishi Pencil Company (Uni), Pentel, Tombow (Mono), rOtring, Zebra, and Kokuyo, though that is far from an exhaustive list. None of the aforementioned companies produce a high-end fountain pen, to my knowledge (though, yes, I know Mitsubishi bought out LAMY in early 2024).
This amount of choice and competition means that prices for pencils are considerably lower on average than they are for fountain pens. Granted, I’d be shocked if economies of scale didn’t also come into play. There’s also the fact that fountain pens, as far as I can tell, are treated as a niche, luxury good. Pencils, by contrast, are treated more as a commodity and sold as such.
Does a $100+ pencil exist? Of course! Manufacturers like Big Idea Design, Tactile Turn, and LAMY all come to mind. That is far from the “norm” in the product segment, however (at least from my vantage point). All of this means that pencils are an “easy splurge” when the models I’m most interested in are in the $20-30 range. While I have bought and enjoyed fountain pens in the same price range, the average cost of the pens I tend to prefer is between $100-200, meaning more thought is needed before a purchase.
There’s one more wrinkle to my economic considerations. I’ve talked about how pencils are cheaper than fountain pens in a general sense (a commodity item versus a niche, luxury item). There’s another wrinkle to that observation, though. Fountain pen manufacturers, and especially Japanese fountain pen manufacturers, have been raising their prices lately. The venerable Pilot 823, which used to cost around $200 USD, is now selling for $400. The same is true for the Platinum 3776. Oof! These prices are hard to swallow, especially in the context of these uncertain economic times (tariffs, political instability, the end of the de minimis rule, which exempted international imports to the US of under $800 from import fees). This all makes paying $20 for a pencil an easy alternative to fountain pens that have only gone up in price.
NOSTALGIA
Stationery has been one of my “special interests” for as long as I can remember. That interest didn’t start with pens, though, and it certainly didn’t start with fountain pens. Instead, it started with the humble pencil. I still remember when the pencil was king, how I hoarded “special” pencils like a dragon, and how I cherished the ability to erase. At the time, the Pentel Kerry was both the object of my desire and utter “unobtainium” for me. It took me years to get my hands on one! It was only after I discovered the joy of the Japanese stationery shop that I finally acquired one; it was quite the adventure.
I only started to drift away from the pencil as I grew older and moved into more professional spaces. The pencil was never forbidden, of course, but there was an expectation that “final” work would be done in pen or with a computer. There was less and less room in my world for the pencil. Also, though it feels silly to say this now: at the time the pencil felt a little juvenile to me. The feature I once lauded – the ability to erase – had become a source of ire. Clearly, I should just get it right the first time! Now that I’m older and virtually all of my work is computer-based, I’ve come back around to enjoying the pencil. Even if past me would cringe, as the saying goes: “I may be cringe, but I am free.”
A SAMPLING OF MY PURCHASES
Of the pencils I’ve purchased over the last few months, the rOtring 600 is my favorite of the “drafting” variety. I appreciate its availability, “industrial” design language, and its grip. It has enough knurling for me to maintain my grip without shredding my fingers. The fact that the 600 is also available in a number of colors is a cherry on top. My only two complaints about the model are the limited choices for lead selection (no 0.3 or 0.9 that I saw in my cursory searches) and that rOtring uses red text on everything. I get the benefit of consistent design language, but it really clashes with some of the colors (blue, green, etc).
My favorite “everyday” pencil has got to be the Dr. Grip. Not only is it readily available, it also comes in a huge variety of colors and styles with features to match almost every pencil-based need: shaking to extend the lead, indicators when the pencil is down to its last piece of lead, and more! It also comes in myriad colors and the eponymous grip is quite comfortable. It’s not as thick as some of my biggest fountain pens, but I find it more comfortable than many other pencils on the market (especially thin or wood case pencils).
What about the pencils that didn’t make it to the top of the pile? I wanted to love the Staedtler “All-Black,” especially since it was quite similar to a drafting pencil I owned and loved (and lost, sadly) as a kid. Unfortunately, unlike the rOtring 600, I found its knurling to be too aggressive. I also tried a “Pacific Arc” drafting pencil (a copy of the rOtring 600), but the one I received had a bent lead barrel and had to be returned. I also wanted to like the Pentel Graph Gear 500, but the little dip between the end of the section and the lead pipe threw off my grip a lot, much more than I expected. (Also, the plastic body felt a little cheap.)
I also purchased a Zebra “Delguard Type-GR” in “Rainy Grey,” but that was more an aesthetic decision than a practical one. What can I say? Even in the pencil world I am a sucker for a cool looking pen that’s limited edition. The two other “dark horse” pens among my recent purchases are the Pilot S10 and S20. They both gave a great first impression, but I haven’t spent enough time with either to offer a definitive judgement. They’re still in their plastic wrapping, and it’d be wild to try and critique them as such. Maybe they’ll end up as my favorites? The S20 in black is absolutely a looker, if nothing else. All I can say is: check back in a few weeks, and maybe I’ll have an update.
The last thing I want to note about my pencil use is that I am not loving HB lead. In short, I find myself craving something a bit darker. Perhaps it’s something I’ll get used to. Perhaps I’m just too accustomed to all the color choices available in the context of fountain pens. In any case, I want something closer to black than the light grey that HB provides. Will 2B (or even 4B+) be the answer? I’m not sure. All I can say with confidence is that I have more testing in my future.
CONCLUSION
The final reason for my pencil shopping spree, aside from economics, nostalgia, and utility is that variety is the spice of life! They’re cheaper, they do things fountain pens can’t (even if the reverse is also true), and I’m nostalgic for when the pencil was the center of my stationery obsession. Since I’ve been focused on fountain pens for the better part of a decade, I’m ready for a little variety! I have no intention of abandoning the fountain pen hobby, of course. There’s definitely room in my heart for many types of stationery!
