REEVES? 4B

I found this mystery pencil the other day that just has 4B printed on it in silver emboss. It looks like it belongs to the Reeves family, but I can't be sure. But what I can be sure of is that it is like drawing with butter, it is so nice (although I actually wouldn't like to draw with butter, let's just make that clear). Have you ever seen the Honda ad about drawing on a banana skin with a biro? it's a bit like that - honestly, you can almost see the lead disappear as you glide it across the page. I had a lot of fun drawing with this, but I have no idea where to get another from, as I imagine this one isn't going to last very long. If it were a round body, boy this would be my favorite pencil ever. Definitely in the top 3.

Staedtler Tradition 3B

The Staedtler tradition, let's face it, it is not a Norris is it, but nevertheless the Dennis the Menace of the pencil world does have its pluses. This 3B is a work horse of a pencil. I found it over Christmas and it has been battered around in my bag, dropped and generally abused but it still looks and draws like I got it out the pack yesterday, I am not sure what wood they use, but what ever it is, is good. As a general pencil this works for me, I can't really use it for tonal work as it doesn't really have the consistency over larger areas, but for detail or sketching its fine. I find it doesn't like being sharpened to a fine point and the first couple of millimeter's sort of crumbles off, which can lead to that really annoying double line thing, but now I am being picky.