Which Pencils Are the Best Value?

Upon sharpening many types of pencils in the classroom and having the sharpener gnaw them down to the stature of a small golf pencil, I have discovered the pencils with the worst and best value.

First, I will describe pencils not worth investing in.  Pencils from a dollar store and holiday pencils etc. are hardly worth buying because the sharpener wears itself down on the plastic coating and cheap wood surrounding the lead.  The lead is too soft to show up well on notebook paper, and the wood splinters too easily on these types of pencils.

I have tried Dixon pencils, Oxford pencils, Office Depot pencils and a number of others of which I don’t recall the names, and these  do a fair job.  However, they don’t produce consistent sharpening results in which one does not have to resharpen due to breakage, splintering, or the lead not being centered.

Pull out your wallet for Ticonderoga and Papermate.  Ticonderoga pencils have soft, non smeary erasers, sharpen perfectly without breakage and splintering, and write darkly.  Papermate rivals Ticonderoga in that Papermate pencils have dark lead and they are made of quality wood, which eliminates splintering breakage.  In contrast, Papermate erasers are hard compared to Ticonderoga and sometimes cause smears.  Papermate pencils sell for much less than Ticonderoga and with the savings, you could buy cap erasers.  Most often before a school year begins, Papermate pencils are on sale for a substantial savings over Ticonderoga.  In my opinion, Papermate pencils are the best value pencils.