“I have found a new kind of pencil — the best I have ever had. Of course, it costs three times as much too but it is Black and it is soft but doesn’t break off. I think I will always use these. They are called Blackwings and they really glide over the paper."

So writer John Steinbeck said about his beloved pencils, originally created in 1934 by the now-extinct pencil maker Eberhard Faber. Also used by artists as varied as Quincy Jones, Vladimir Nabokov, and Stephen Sondheim, this pencil here pictured is sadly not the original, but a recreation, albeit a faithful one; it is a top notch pencil, particularly suited to drawing and sketching. Very dark in colour, very buttery, the lead melts into the page.

This yellow "Eras" pencil, released in 2023, was inspired by the Eberhard Faber Van Dyke 601 pencil.