Today I’m going to test my hypothesis that an “art pencil” that you write with is a writing pencil. The Prismacolor Turquoise, a pencil widely known in the sketching community but rarely seen in the hands of a writer, is today’s review subject. Let’s take a look at both the HB and the 2B grades; the ones likely to be most relevant to writers.
The very first thing I noticed about the Prismacolor Turquoise pencil is how damn good it looks. The barrels are finished in (you guessed it!) a silky turquoise lacquer that really pops on the shelf against all of the black or nearly-black paint jobs surrounding it in the high-end pencil section. I was debating about which of the usual suspects to pick up for my next review when the Turquoise caught my eye the next shelf down. It had me thinking, “whoa, what’s that?” Closer inspection revealed an impeccable silver imprint with the usual information (brand, model, grade and such). There are some perceptible tool marks near the top ends of the barrels but it’s not really a turn-off. And to top it all off — literally — this pencil features neither an eraser tip nor a dipped end, but a unique aluminum cap with a single red stripe. A very smart, attractive look indeed.
The woodwork of the Prismacolor Turquoise appears to be well-done. I roll-tested a handful of examples in the store and every single one of them appeared to be arrow-straight. A visual inspection of the cores indicated that they were all well-centered, at least to my eye.
I brought one HB and one 2B home to be my guinea pigs. Sharpening the HB revealed a little bit of a “thumbnail” on the tip but nothing to worry about. I worked my way down both of them over a few days of work and neither core was wonky enough to cause trouble. Although the aroma isn’t exactly pungent, I can detect what I believe to be the signature scent of cedar. I can’t find the species written down anywhere, but the color and grain of the wood seem to confirm what my nose is telling me, so I’ll call it cedar until I hear otherwise.
Regardless of the type of tree it came from, the wood sharpens smoothly — very smoothly, in fact. Tipping up a handful of other pencils back-to-back with the same sharpener just to judge the feel, the Turquoise sharpens as easily as any other including the much-lauded Blackwing. For the most part the finished tip is as smooth as one could hope for, and only once did I notice any core separation or chipping around the throat (and it turned out to be inconsequential).
OK. So, the Prismacolor Turquoise looks great, and seems to be well-built. But how does it write? Let’s put the pencil to the paper and see how the cores stand up.
Let’s start with the HB. This is not a smooth writer. It has a generally scratchy feel to it that is rougher than the General’s Supreme and rivals (but doesn’t quite top) the Horse 2200 HB in the scratchiness department. That in and of itself wouldn’t be a huge deal except that the hardness of the core feels inconsistent with noticeable “chunks” that are perceptibly grittier occasionally coming to the surface during writing. This felt very unpleasant to me.
On the plus side, the point retention of the Turquoise HB core is pretty good, yielding about 2/3 of a composition notebook page — about on par with, and probably slightly better than, the Chinese Ticonderoga; and obviously longer-lasting than softer leads like the Blackwing variety. The HB grading seems to be pretty accurate. The line darkness is in the neighborhood of the General’s Supreme or the Chinese Ticonderoga, lighter than the Horse 2200 HB, and darker than the Faber-Castell 9000 HB. I perceive a bit of a “warm” tint to the graphite compared to the others I tested it against. The lines stood up well in the smudge test, similar to the Supreme 550, and I didn’t experience any breakage during writing or sharpening. Aside from the grittiness, it’s checks all of the boxes I’d look for in a HB core.
As expected, the 2B core provides a significantly smoother writing experience than the HB. Still, like the HB, the page feel is a tad rough for its grade. Comparing it to a Tombow 8900, the Turquoise is significantly scratchier. It feels comparable to the Faber-Castell 1200‘s I picked up in Thailand; not silky smooth for a soft-lead pencil but not gratingly rough either. Unfortunately, the random chunks of whatever are present in the 2B iteration of this pencil as well. Not quite as often, but still frustrating.
Like its HB sibling, I’d say the Turquoise 2B core leaves a line that is true to its grade. It compares to the Faber-Castell 1112 2B and the Blackwing 602; and is fainter than the Tombow 8900 2B and the Blackwing Pearl. Unlike the HB Turquoise, the 2B is about as smudgy as other pencils in its grade, although it’s not ridiculous and smudges are usually a given when you use softer pencils. The 2B doesn’t retain a viable point as long as the HB does (to state the obvious). It was able to churn out about 1/2 a composition notebook page before I feel compelled to re-sharpen. The Blackwing 602 seems to hold its point a little bit longer than the Turquoise, but not by much.
This is the part of the review where I usually talk about the eraser. Well, there is none. But rather than omitting this paragraph as I might do for another eraser-less pencil, there are some logistical issues worth discussing. Most importantly, both pencils erase fine with a high-quality eraser. Not perfect, but pretty good. Also on the plus side, despite the fancy aluminum cap (actually, it turns out, because of it), the Prismacolor Turquoise is eraser cap compatible; not too tight, not too loose. White Pentel Polymer caps even look quite handsome with the surf green pencil lacquer.
However, the aluminum end caps are not very securely fixed to the barrel of the pencil, so once you’ve put a eraser cap on one of these babies, don’t ever expect to get the aluminum end cap out it — it’s going to be lodged in there until the end of time — and, sadly, if you remove the aluminum cap, the eraser fits too loosely. Erasers far outlive pencils in my daily use and I’d hate to throw a perfectly good eraser away with the pencil. Thankfully, the aluminum end cap fits on the Horse 2200 — which badly needs an eraser upgrade — once you rip the ferrule off, so there’s a workaround if you experience this problem. Still, it’s kind of lame to have to engineer a solution for a wood pencil.
So, my overall take on the Prismacolor Turquoise? I think it’s a shame to waste the resources to build such a well-built pencil around such a bad core. I see the core as the most fundamental component of a pencil; everything else is pretty much just a graphite holder. Obviously the other components come into play or I wouldn’t bother writing extensively about them (or using wooden pencils instead of mechanical ones) but if the core sucks, who cares if it looks pretty or erases well? It has to write good or you’re not going to want to use it. If you don’t use it, nothing else matters.
And that’s pretty much the story with the Prismacolor Turquoise. I just can’t get past the inconsistency and grittiness. Sanford manufactures these pencils in Mexico. I admit that I’m working from a small sample size, and I’m trying my best to check any biases. But I formed my opinion on these before I knew the country of origin (even though, on closer inspection, I noticed that “Mexico” is stamped right on the barrel…doh!) and so far I am not impressed with Mexican pencil cores. I can’t figure out a rational explanation for why Team Mexico is batting .000 with me. I don’t think Mexico makes inherently inferior products. I can’t see why it would matter where in the world you mix graphite and clay to form a pencil core. Perhaps the correlation is that companies who want to cut costs by moving production to Mexico are also willing to cut costs by loosening QC requirements, but low-cost Asian countries produce plenty of great cores. Maybe it’s just coincidence, and I’d love to get my hands on a kick-ass Mexican pencil to prove it. In fact, that sounds like a great endeavor for future reviews. But until I find one that beats the Turquoise and the highly blah Mexican Ticonderoga, I’m skeptical of Mexican pencils.
With the cores being unpleasant as they are, it’s hard to justify spending over a dollar per pencil on the Turquoise. Cue my rant about the difference between writing pencils and graphite artist’s pencils: from what I can tell the only difference is the price we are willing to pay. Both types of pencil are nothing more than painted pieces of wood that hold graphite-clay cores used for marking on paper. There’s no reason that they’re not interchangeable. I think the only material difference is that art pencil manufacturers skip the eraser and use the money they saved to give it a fancier coat of paint. But because we perceive art pencils to be “high-end” and they’re sold in the same section of the store as other pencils going for $1.50-$2, they can jack the price up over a dollar and people will still think it’s a good deal — even if it’s functionally inferior to the 50-cent “office” pencils at the other end of the same shelf. I’m not saying all high-end pencils are a ripoff (I love me some Blackwings). I’m saying that pencils that aren’t actually high-end in quality can command a high-end price simply by marketing themselves to artists instead of writers.
My final verdict: the Prismacolor Turquoise is a beautiful, well-made pencil; but when it comes to actually writing with it, it’s no competition for much more affordable alternatives.
Oh…and the the thing where the alumnium cap falls off is kind of annoying too.
Rad Dad AK 