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Yard-O-Led Edwardian pencil
Yard-O-Led is a famous writing implement manufacturer. For those who appreciate graphite writing implements, their products have a unique appeal. The company’s original offering, the mechanical pencil, is still made in historic styles and formats by a team of six in Birmingham, England. Unlike many other fine writing implement manufacturers, their pencils are not derivatives of a pen offering – the pencils have a unique mechanism and format which has remained essentially unchanged from 1934 to the present.
This particular pencil was chosen carefully. Though other traditional formats appealed to me, my experience with a vintage Yard-O-Led pencil indicated that some were a bit hard to hold in my hand. I wanted this pencil for daily use, and not to be banished to a shelf. For me, the Edwardian pencil got it right – round, heavy, with a long tapering that allows for a wide variety of comfortable grips. The weight is 45 grams! Consider that a modern woodcase pencil is about 4g, and a large modern metal pencil like the Porsche Design P’3120 is 30g – the Edwardian is a substantial heavyweight. Yet the weight is nicely balanced, and the 134mm long pencil is comfortable to hold. The body is sterling silver, with a barleycorn pattern finish. The nose has a very long taper. There is a clip with serial number and the “Yard-O-Led” name. The flat top cap is marked “Made in England”. The barleycorn has two interruptions – a space for hallmarks, and a space suitable for engraving.
The cap twists to extend and retract the 1.18mm lead. An advantage of the twist mechanism is the ability to retract the lead.
The lead refill mechanism is much smoother and more usable than on the vintage pencil, which should not be a surprise. The instruction booklet is still welcome – it isn’t a typical refill system for 2009.
I have been using the pencil at work for about one month. While one month is not a long period of time for a pencil that truly was made to last for years, I’ll say that I am absolutely delighted with it. It writes, looks, and feels like something special – which it is.
The pencil is not inexpensive, yet I have no trouble saying it is definitely worth the price. In fact I regret having purchased so many cheaper mechanical pencils the last few years (especially those aimed purely at drafting purposes) – most are now stashed away unused in drawers, and cost in aggregate much more than this Yard-O-Led. The guarantee states that Yard-O-Led pencils with serial numbers will always be serviced, and there is ample testimony around that the manufacturer faithfully honours this statement. It will not be my last Yard-O-Led! Further reading: Pentrace article on the history of Yard-O-Led. Previous post at pencil talk on a vintage Yard-O-Led pencil. That post was privileged to receive a comment from Mr. Colin Keates, the grandson of Yard-O-Led founder Ludwig Brenner. 17 comments to Yard-O-Led Edwardian pencil |
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Very interesting. I didn’t know that this style was still being made. I’ve got a nice gold filled Wahl Co. Eversharp (USA made). It was meant to be personalized, and mine is engraved with “Robert Beck”. It has a “meanderline” pattern on the barrel with taper slightly longer than a sharpened wood pencil. It’s a very nice looking mechanical pencil and feels great. The pocket clip is very short, which was the style before the mid-1900′s. I think I got it from one of the pen/pencil collector sites. The bulk of my mechanical pencil collection is from ebay.
Mine looks a lot like this one, but is gold and has a thin groove meanderline (like putting squared off letter S’s on top of each other down the barrel) rather than this ornate engraving:
http://www.vintagepens.com/Eversharp_pencil.shtml
Green, green, green…thats the colour you have turned me, and that’s quite a change for an All Black sort of guy :-)
You make a very good point about this YOL having more value to you than all the others you have spent money on. I will bear that in mind when setting my 2010 purchasing priorities. The problem is, 1 x YOL pretty much wipes out my annual pencil budget, and I’m not sure I can let a whole year go by and only buy 1 pencil :-)
What a great looking pencil. I especially like the look of the cap (but prefer the rounder dome of the Faber-Castell and Graf von Faber-Castell pencils even more). An explanation of UK hallmarks can be found at http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/assayoffice/currenthallmarks.htm
I just realised that the previous link does not explain the date letters. The date letter is explained at http://www.theassayoffice.co.uk/date_letters.html
Very classy.
Does it still hold 36 inches of refill leads?
Sadly I am in Dave’s predicament over budgets and I would be terrified of losing such an item.
Wow, that is a beautiful pencil and, yes, I’m envious. You also make an excellent point of buying the right pencil the first time instead of a hundred OK pencils. Perhaps this blog and Dave’s can help first time buyers pick the right pencil the first time. For myself, the weight worries me. I like my pencils to look fantastic and then to “fade from view” while I draw or write. I’m not sure that would ever happen with me at 45 g; although , it looks like the weight is a bit higher up on the YOL so it shouldn’t be a problem. I have a sterling Caran d’Ache which I generally love but occasionally, when drawing, it feels like a rock.
David O., thank you for the comments.
Kiwi-d, on pricing, one has to keep in mind that there are discounters, especially in the US and Malaysia. Merchants in the UK and Canada seem to have sworn allegiance to charging at least full retail price.
Matthias, thanks for your comments and for those links. I know information like that existed, but it is very nice to have those links together. I am glad to learn that the ‘k’ indicates this is a pencil manufactured in 2009.
Michael, an interesting question. I just measured the refills in the chamber, and indeed there are twelve of them, pointed, three inches long. The pencil does have a yard of lead! But the official Yard-O-Led brand refill is just 2 3/8 inches:
che pablo, thank you for your comment. You raise a number of excellent points.
I agree with you on the pencil pricing (however kiwi also made a good point with the vanishing budget)… I have collected some used YOLs via ebay; although I like the look of them and although I can live with the somewhat archaic refilling procedure, they rest mostly in the shelf. That’s because I didn’t get used to the 1.18mm lead, it’s just too thick for me to write with.
PS: I understand the point with many grip possibilities on the long tapering, but especially in your 1st photo the pencil looks really dangerous, quite like a stiletto :-o
A beauty! Does the pencil feel very long? And, a strange question, does the barrel get cold in the hands from being pure metal? How does this pencil compare to a Graf von Faber-Castell Pernambuco mechanical pencil, if you have one? Too many questions! In short: congratulations on this stunning purchase.
@2nd_astronaut: When you are walking around with several hundreds dollars worth of pencil in your pocket, it might be useful to have a stiletto. :-) Also, I think of 1.18 mm as a drawing lead that hits a sweet spot between 0.9mm and 2mm lead. Like the 2mm lead, you can control the quality of the line but, like the 0.9 mm lead, you do not need to sharpen it.
@PencilAdmin: How solid does the lead advance feel? In some twist pencils I have, there is significant backlash in the advance mechanism. Indeed, my Worther Profil is almost unuseable due to 0.9 mm of wiggle. (Yes, I was enough of a geek to measure it.)
2nd_astronaut, thanks for your comment. For me, the 1.18mm lead is just fine – I like the fact that it is the unaltered historic diameter, and that the lead doesn’t break. There are new 1.18mm pencils still being introduced to the market, and the Yard-O-Led brand is still around, so some must like it.
Adair, I’m not sure if it feels long, but the weight is perhaps more the factor that requires adjustment. I would say it warms in one’s hand over a period several minutes. I haven’t tried it outdoors though, and probably won’t during winter. And alas, I do not have a Graf von Faber-Castell Pernambuco mechanical pencil. If I ever bought one of the Classic line, I think it would also be a silver pencil.
che pablo, the lead advance, like the pencil, seems extremely solid to me. No wiggle.
On the lead diameters: When I bought my first 1.18 pencil (an old Montblanc Pix), I was interested to see how I like the thicker lead. I expected that it would be fine, since this seems to be the standard diameter for a long time. But — it does’t work for me. Sketching might be fine, but I don’t sketch that much — for writing I clearly prefer smaller diameters like 0.5 (for making notes in books I normally use a 0.9mm, because often the paper is too weak for 0.5). It’s clearly a matter of taste and writing style, I have a small script, so I use thin leads… Also I don’t use much pressure while writing — I don’t remember breaking a .5 lead while writing.
Thanks for a nice review and congratulations with a historic and luxurious pencil. It is a wonderful item and the pictures are, well, exquisite.
However, I think this review saved me a lot of money. I’ve always wanted one of these, but I have never taken the weight in consideration. I’ve found that I prefer lightweight and no metal – tapering grip zones for a comfortable hold (I have to write much).I think my limit is ca. 35 grams, so this one would probably give me some problems.
Well, I’ll just have to enjoy the pictures and think of all the money I’ve saved.
Regards
Henrik
A fine instrument with a long history. Brilliant pictures of this exquisitely crafted pencil. I’m researching writing instruments as used and written about by famous authors. Has the Yard-o-lead being used by any such to anyone’s knowledge?
Lito
I use an old YOL silver mechanical pencil cerca 1940 which I found among my late father’s pencil collection which I inherited. There are several other silver pens on fob chains and one Victorian gold and gutta percha ‘push and pull’ extending pencil as well as a few art deco bakelites. The YOL is very neat and elegant and I love it. The only problem I had was where on earth it could store the yard of lead, until I found the lead reservoir when cleaning the mechanism. Incidentally, I am an author although I doubt the nomenclature ‘famous’. I write of true crime investigations and can be found on amazon.co.uk.
Incidentally, if anyone would like photographs of the pens, e-mail me with your e-mail address to dannycollins@dannyjpcollins.com
Happy writing….
Yard-O-Led would kill me for screwing around with their pencil. I bought my pencil because of its feel, balance and elegance. I didn’t buy it as an investment, but as a daily working tool. I’m an artist and use it to sketch and do finished drawings… very delicate drawings where feel and balance were a premium, so I must say, I absolutely love my YOL. Try as I might, I couldn’t get used to the thick lead, nor did I like going to a specialty pen shop to get the leads. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I gessoed the tip with acrylic gesso. Then I put a .9mm lead in the casing and crimped it to size. I ran it through the wet gesso, retracted it and let the gesso set. I’ve since used it on a daily basis for over fifteen years. I apologize to YOL for bastardizing their fine implement, but it was expensive and I had to make it work for me. It is my favorite pencil of all the Parkers and Pelikans in my collection.