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Blackwing 602 pencil
The Blackwing 602 was not a commercial success – despite praise from novelist John Steinbeck and mentions in Henry Petroski’s The Pencil, Sanford discontinued the pencil in 1997 due to lack of sales.
The story of the pencil’s demise is in a 2004 article at The Pencil Pages. The eraser clasp machine broke, and supply ran out. Why not fix the machine? At sales of just over a thousand boxes a year, the Blackwing had become a marginal brand, and was allowed to lapse.
It’s hard to get a fix on current supply and demand. They seem be regularly for sale on eBay, year after year. A modern pencil, out of production for only a decade, the Blackwing has become highly collectable – selling for $20 to $50 (or even more) per pencil.
A gentleman (and pencil user) from Missouri kindly sent me a Blackwing for inspection this past week. My thanks to him. The pencil has an unusual ferrule. Up to the 1940s, pencils had more variety in ferrules/erasers (many examples at Brand Name Pencils), but modern production techniques have standardized these interesting varieties. The Blackwing’s ferrule has a gold colour, and presents a rectangular wedge. A family member who paints immediately thought it was a paintbrush clasp.
The wedge allows the insertion of a small block eraser. I won’t test the original (and now dry) decade old pink eraser, but the format does allow one to slice replacement pieces from a regular block eraser – an idea I like.
As charming as the novel ferrule/eraser looks, it seems a terrible idea. First, it distorts the pencil’s natural dimensions. Standard pencils, from the 19th throught the 21st centuries, are about 175mm. The Blackwing is about 200mm including the eraser.
Possibly even worse – the Blackwing’s balance point is quite wrong for a pencil. A standard quality pencil’s point of balance is at the halfway point. But for the Blackwing, it is about 70% up the pencil’s length. As the pencil is sharpened, that proportion will become more extreme.
The reason is that the pencil weighs 5.3 grams – with the eraser/clasp weighing 1.1g. 20% of the pencil’s unsharpened weight is at the cap – and increasing as a percentage as the pencil gets sharpened.
Unless the Blackwing is your only pencil – it is too different from standard pencils to make an easy adjustment to the odd balance. The pencil is a smoky grey. I like it, and see why others agree. The obverse is labelled:
As well , “DB” is impressed into the wood. Any idea what this code refers to? The reverse has the great slogan:
I sharpened the pencil in the Carl Decade DE-100. As much as I love pencils, I don’t love most pencil sharpeners, and Carl’s products are great exceptions.
The Blackwing sharpens very nicely, as expected. On paper, I tried the pencil on a Rhodia pad. I’ll admit my first surprise – the blogosphere’s perspective on pencils is that that dark rich lines are the best – and the Blackwing seemed quite middling in the category. Okay, mabye not middling – much better than the vast majority of pencils – yet as a pencil that some claim should rest on a throne – it seemed to leave a lighter mark than other top pencils. The smoothness category may be the key to understanding the Blackwing – the pencil is not smooth – it is more like slippery – floating on paper without tension, but not creating an appreciably dark line. The wax content in the pencil is a main feature. I also tried erasure – with a Staedtler Mars, it seems to outperform other pencils, erasing very cleanly. Some darker pencils like to draw outside the lines – emitting crumbles and residue – but the Blackwing excels in staying put! The Pencil Pages article mentions the Blackwing’s putative successors, and I thought I would try them out as well. A distinction to be noted – we are told that the Blackwing is a 4B grade lead – but quality pencils ranges today vary the lead diameter with the lead grade – softer lead grades having wider diameters – so these other pencils may have an advantage.
The Turqouise 4B is good, but it doesn’t strike me as being of the same calibre in any sense. The Blackwing’s lead apparently carried on in the Microtomic (another lapsed label/brand). There are various ‘Microtomic’ pencils – some principally labelled as Microtomic, and some from another principle brand, with “Microtomic” used as an adjective. Some research on the name is here. I have a few laying around – they typically have have attractive packaging, and I have variants in 2B, 5B, and 6B – but not 4B.
This test left me wondering why I hadn’t previously sharpened them. The Microtomics lay down a superb pencil line. The 2B is exceptionally smooth, and capable of reaching extremely deep shades. The Microtomic line seems perhaps less smooth and waxy than the Blackwing, yet is still an equally worthy pencil.
Another line of enquiry that of course occured was – how does the Blackwing compare with modern pencils? Modern pencilmaking’s best efforts seem to occur in Japan, and I selected the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 4B as the main comparison pencil.
Tests were also conducted with the Tombow Mono Special 6B, Craft Design item 17 HB, Tombow Mono 4B, and Kitaboshi Hit 4B. The Blackwing is in the middle at darkness, it excels at erasability and crumbling resistance, and is also in the middle at smoothness. It isn’t really a peer of the top modern pencils. This test may be like comparing the automobiles of 1968 to those of 2010 – the past achievements are acknowledged and celebrated, but decades of engineering advancements just can’t be overcome. The Blackwing 602 was great in the climate of it’s time, but died through lack of support. With Sanford’s pencil production leaving the US this year, the Blackwing is definitely not returning. If you love quality woodcase pencils, now is the time to support today’s Blackwings – the top products from Kitaboshi, Pentel, Tombow, and Mitsubishi. 22 comments to Blackwing 602 pencil |
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Again, wonderful photographs accompanied by useful data. I would love to see a review of the Mars Lumograph HB and 2B by Staedtler. Pardon me if you have already done just that. Great work.
Wonderful and interesting review!
I’ve got a few of these Blackwings. They’re effortless to write with, but I can’t imagine paying $20 or more for one. For that price, you can get a dozen Hi Uni. I bought a gross of Hi Uni back when they were only available in Japan, but I’m glad they’re easy to get on the interwebs now … I hope I don’t end up paying $20 each for them at some point in the future!!
I seem to remember seeing lots of Blackwings strewn about on the conference room table in the movie “All the President’s Men.”
Very, very well done. I nice and informative review. For once an bit of criticism of the holy grail and a realistic view on the future Blackwing:
“….now is the time to support today’s Blackwings – the top products from Kitaboshi, Pentel, Tombow, and Mitsubishi”. Nicely put, I agree – but IMHO the Palomino Pencil is of this calibre too.
Regards
Henrik
While I agree that the Japanese pencils are first-rate and certainly the best pencils that are being made in our time, the Blackwing is nevertheless a unique and beautiful pencil, with its own special character. I do not have balance issues with it, and I love the eraser/ferrule design, which was shared, by the way, by versions of the Microtomics and Van Dykes (also much loved pencils). If this pencil were still made today and if it sold at an affordable price, it would be my pencil of choice. Its gliding smoothness and dark line make it perfect for swift writing. I can see why an author like Thomas Wolfe, who wrote very fast in huge script without stopping to revise, used the Blackwing chiefly. And that is something else that I like about the Blackwing: it was the favorite pencil of so many American writers—that is all about aura rather than performance, I know, but it embues the pencil with an extra magic. If Sanford were to bring this legendary pencil back, I am sure that it would sell at least as well as or better than the Turquoise. And the high prices on ebay would finally come down. I wish that the visionary leader at Palomino would buy the rights to the Blackwing and come out with a contemporary version of it. Or there could be historical reissues of famous pencils, like the Blackwing, the Microtomic, the Van Dyke, the Mongol and the Venus Velvet. What a great project that would be! At least the Mongol is still being produced in the Phillipines and in South America.
ayehartpinzils, we looked at the Staedtler Mars Lumograph in 2007. Please take a look here.
David O., thanks for sharing that observation. I’d like to see that film again.
Henrik, I agree – and since one of those named companies probably makes the Palomino, it is included even if not named!
Adair, thanks for a very engaging comment. I gather that Amspec in the Phillipines no longer use the Mongol name.
The following news may potentially fulfill one of your wishes – Sanford has let the Blackwing trademark expire (it was registered by Eberhard Faber in 1934) – and CalCedar has applied for the name – though they don’t yet have the registration. There may in fact soon be a CalCedar Blackwing!
A very thorough and well-documented review on such famous pencil. Hope people keep buying and supporting the Hi-Uni, for I would hate to see it follow in the same fate as the Blackwing 602 pencil.
Wow—the possibility about CalCedar and the Blackwing is amazing! That will be big pencil news if it comes through! Thanks for the peek ahead. Sorry to hear about Amspec, though.I guess that means that Pencilthings won’t continue to carry the Phillipine Mongols…Thanks for such an in-depth and realistic review.
Great review, very informative, I like the comment about the ferrule being a piantbrush holder.
As you say, “support today’s Blackwings – the top products from Kitaboshi, Pentel, Tombow, and Mitsubishi.”, but lets hope CalCedar can revive the Blackwing…hmmm, the Blackwing Phoenix perhaps?
Love the review and love the idea of the Blackwing. The gap in the analysis is that you appear to be talking about pencils as writing tools, but don’t highlight that. Someone like me, using pencils as drawing tools, might assess the Blackwing a little differently. For instance, since I regularly work with pencils from 7H through 9B, I don’t need Blackwing to be the darkest ever, just reasonably accurate about what it claims to be. And since I work with a lot of different drawing materials of varying lengths, weights and diameter, I never give balance a second thought. (There are actually gizmos, both homemade and commercially manufactured, for extending the length of a drawing tool. That’s because I want to get every last bit of goodness out of my short-sharpened pencils.)
But the feel, laydown, erasure and smudging — I care about those markmaking qualities a *lot*.
It looks magical. I bought one out of curiosity, and hope to see them on the market again — for writing, or drawing.
Thanks very much for the comments.
Linda, thanks for that detailed contribution.
I bought six dozen of these pencils from my local stationer (remember those?) after I read about them in Petroski’s book. I thought the erasers were worthless–all they would do is smudge.
After I read the story of the machine breaking, it occurred to my that Sanford could just leave the eraser off–the pencil would be even better!
Anyway, I ended up selling the pencils I had left to a designer or architect fellow for a very high price. He wanted them alot more than I did!
Very exciting! Thank you for that detailed review and the great photos.
I am happy to see that someone has evaluated the suggested successors to the Blackwing. As a collector, I am reluctant to sharpen any pencils just for evaluation, though I do have thousands of old sharpened stubs I could use for that purpose.
An addition to Linda Carson’s comments – virtually all of those mourning the demise of the Blackwing – in my experience – are artists.
It is a delight to get some feedback straight from the author of “The Blackwing 602 – the Final Chapter”. Your essay may be the most read online article on pencils, and has definitely helped keep the Blackwing in the public eye. (Mr. Martin is the force behind The Pencil Pages.)
Great review, thanks! I agree with Linda as well. It seems many of the blogs reviewing blackwings and successors are rating it as a writing utensil which would have slightly different characteristics than a drawing implement. I came upon this site the blackwing diaries which actually made me first aware of the blackwing, and takes on a look at the pencils from an animation perspective. I’d be curious to see a review/pencil successor article from a drawing perspective side by side with a writers perspective and see where the overlap occurs.
Also being a 4B i suppose i’d personally think of it as a drawing pencil, and would be curious to know the sales specs on other pencils of the type as you mention it’s sales being low. The mars lumograph? Perhaps in part that’s tied in with it being a specialty pencil vs a run of the mill bulk pencil?
thanks again!!!
Blackwings were the pencil of choice growing up in Pleasantville, New York. It’s what dad used at his office at Reader’s Digest, and when mom dropped by the office she’d help herself to a dozen or so. The removable eraser was unique so far as I knew then. As it wore down we’d extract it and pull out a bit more, biting the inner end of the clasp to crimp it. Believe me, when new the erasers worked fine. DeWitt Wallace brought the craze to RD, and the Blackwing was his pencil of choice. He would hand write short messages by the dozen, always in big bold script, signed either DW or Wally, as if somebody could possibly mistake his handwriting for someone else’s.
Gordon, thank you for this wonderful reminiscence.
If anyone’s interested a dozen new-in-the-box Blackwing 602 Pencils will be available in a charity auction on eBay starting Jan. 21, 2010 .
See here for details:
http://www.helpthehodges.com/2010/01/brand-new-one-dozen-blackwing-602.html
http://www.helpthehodges.com/
I’m glad to see a comparison of a cult item with some of the more popular high-end pencils today.
I think what amused me most was how you mentioned the CDT Item 17 HB. You tossed an HB into a test with a bunch of 4B? I’m not complaining about that, since I stick to the F-B range as a writer. 4B goes dull wayyyy too quickly for me, though the smoothness is great.
My guilty pleasure in writing is a Hi-Uni B, though my go-to woodcased pencil is the Hi-Uni HB or the CDT 17 now (I have yet to get some Mono 100s). I suppose it being one of my standard pencils is why I am curious about your choice to use it in comparison to the Blackwing.
I’d love to see CalCedar revive the Blackwing…if it’s designed/printed well, even with a finished/lacquered endcap instead of the traditional eraser (not a fan of any ferrule/eraser end myself), I’ll probably get some even though I’ve no need for a 4B.
The more i think about it, yes, I DO want the original ferrule/eraser…That defined the look of the pencil. Plus, I love the thin edge to the “crimped” eraser for fine erasures.