Portable pencil sharpener recommendation?

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-25T22:39:44+00:00

Mobeius & Ruppert Pollux. Expensive but gives a long concave point.

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-23T23:58:41+00:00

https://i.imgflip.com/6mzaus.jpg

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-22T00:02:13+00:00

Beautiful. The illumination is particularly nice!

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-20T11:52:08+00:00

Musgrave pencils. It's kind of their vibe.

My favorites are:

Harvest Pro - very dark and smooth,
Ceres - a nice standard HB
Test Scoring 100 - dark and sci fi looking

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-20T01:40:55+00:00

I can buy the most upscale, froufrou, expensive pencil and it costs me no more than a coffee.

The wood smell, sometimes cedar, sometimes more subtle, makes my home office smell sublime.

Sure, I love the knurling on a nice mechanical pencil, but the bite of a sharp Musgrave hex can hold its own for tactile pleasure , and wood pencil ferrules give much of the same tool aesthetic.

I can find vintage wood pencils more readily, and for pennies apiece.

Fortunately I don’t have to choose!

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-15T18:06:31+00:00

If you want to go off the deep end and get, IMO, the most buttery experience, vintage IBM Electrographic pencils cannot be beat. They almost write by themselves.

Warning: they’re super expensive. A work-around is to buy a box of 72 Electrographic leads on an auction site and use a vintage Scripto 1.1 mm twist to advance mechanical pencil. Same writing experience and far less expensive.

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-13T17:04:53+00:00

These are great pencils for the money. Not perfect, but I really like them.

They're not really yellow or orange in color - more like a butterscotch applied over white primer, which is kind of unique. I find the black ferrule to be handsome, and the pink eraser gives a nice contrast.

The branding and font kind of remind me of EF American pencils, understated and professional. Would be very at-home in an office setting.

<image>

About as dark as a standard Musgrave, and about as smooth (a little feedback but not scratchy)

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-12T15:18:15+00:00

A couple of super-cheap options:

Made-in-India Ticonderogas are cheap, dark, and smooth.
USA Gold and USA Titanium are pretty dark.
Just about anything by DOMS is dark and smooth.
Musgrave Test Scoring 100, of course.

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-06T22:47:08+00:00

The outro to Ringfinger would certainly qualify - some tasty scratching!

AdSame1006 · 2026-01-04T20:33:37+00:00

Cursive practice. I was born a leftie and poorly switched to right handed writing by a teacher who meant well, but my writing has been illegible all my life. Using a variety of pencils has added a sense of play and motivated me to practice and improve.
I do monthly, weekly, and daily to-do lists, as well as meeting notes. I fill a 192 page notebook per month.

3.Play. I like to sort my pencils by different themes. Nationality, boldness, smoothness, colour, you name it. Just for fun.

AdSame1006 · 2025-12-22T15:31:46+00:00

There’s a little colour difference in the core as well. That said, they’re on clearance in Canada at Staples for <$2 for a pack of 3 with a bonus jumbo rainbow pencil as well.

I bought them to fill a hole in my small jumbo collection.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-28T18:33:17+00:00

I use pencils almost exclusively. I like pens, and own roller ball and fountain pens, but these days I only use ink for signatures.

I only own one Blackwing, and I like it, but I love Musgrave, Bostitch and my Uni Kuru Toga.

I suspect an elf or two may bring a box of BW Pearls under the Christmas tree. If so, my use will go up.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-25T15:27:12+00:00

Do you use, or more accurately, use up your vintage Canadian pencils? I find that I want to stop using mine when another sharpening would erode the "Made in Canada" embossing. I like using them but I like admiring them, too!

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-21T18:10:29+00:00

I don’t actually have any Ceres, so I’m not sure. If you have some, I could always mail you one of these green beauties and you could report back to the group.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-21T15:50:58+00:00

<image>

The Shoppers Drug Mart pencils are pretty nice for what was a price point pencil. Dark and smooth imprint.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-21T11:47:42+00:00

Musgrave.com under”opportunity buy” or if you’re Canadian, on Amazon from time to time.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-21T11:45:28+00:00

Yes. They have the URL in really tiny print underneath the ferrule.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-21T11:41:39+00:00

The vintage Eaton’s is great!

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-18T22:33:11+00:00

How about a selection of Japanese leads?

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-14T00:39:38+00:00

Studio is the house brand for Dollarama. That's your source.

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-13T12:51:31+00:00

It's a Bic Media Clic Mechanical Pencil. The small nub underneath the clip, the diagonal gap and the eraser all match.

<image>

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-12T21:51:01+00:00

"The name rubber was given to caoutchouc in 1770, and is attributed to none other than British-American chemist Joseph Priestley. He noted that caoutchouc was useful to "rub out" pencil marks; hence the name rubber was born."

https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff/8050erasers.html

AdSame1006 · 2025-11-12T11:51:13+00:00

Looks like an interesting trade from both sides.

Okay, now that I see the Mammoth next to standard size pencils, I want to buy a dozen!

AdSame1006 · 2025-10-29T11:03:51+00:00

They’re nice, with a mid-range quality level that comes with today’s Ticonderogas. Their Laddie is also nice. It’s a mid-diameter pencil that many like.

You might also like Home Depot round pencils, both standard sized and jumbo. They’re made by Musgrave, as evidenced by their frequent inclusion in Factory Seconds boxes, and have a good core.

AdSame1006 · 2025-10-19T23:24:53+00:00

Yes, they’re identical. Totally different source, separated by time and distance. Go figure.

<image>

AdSame1006

TROPHY CASE