Paper Mate Mirado Black Warrior Pencil, Hb (#2), Black Lead, Black Matte Barrel, Dozen

I was a die hard Dixon Ticonderoga user but recently the quality has been poor. I really like these for drafting music. The barrel is a bit smaller an not hexagonal & feels better for prolonged periods. Very smooth.

Best pencils...Lead doesn't bust every 3 seconds like those other lame ones you always get.

We really like these pencils because the erasers tend to work better than other pencil brands and they don't leave smudges or smears on your paper. For some reason, the box we ordered from Amazon had a pencil in it that we just kept sharpening and sharpening but there was no lead inside it! That was the first time that had happened to us.

Nice smooth lead, no scratchiness, and very consistent. The real wood is top notch for a pencil and combined with the round profile it leaves them a little stiffer than the average hex-sided ones, so they flex less and won't crack the lead in the shaft long before you get to it. The black is also very macho. This is not a sissy pencil, with sparkles or flowers or bunnies on it. It's a real writing tool that wears its name proudly. (It does roll off your desk pretty easily though. Not such a tough actor when it comes to fighting gravity on a sloped surface.) It's about as good as a plain wooden pencil gets, at least in the "normal person" world. It's not a collectors item, and not an aficionado's pencil made in some monastery in Japan using wood from hand-raised 1000 year-old cedars grown only on the eastern slope of some mountain. It's just a good honest pencil that doesn't cut any corners, and delivers what a pencil should. If you like good tools, this is a good pencil for you. If to you a pencil is a pencil is a pencil, then go to the back-to-school sales and buy a gross of those compressed paper and sawdust yellow ones for buck. They'll sharpen funny and off-center, break a lot, get hard-scratchy spots in the lead that make it feel like you're writing with sand, have lead which cracks and falls out as fast you can sharpen them, and have erasers which smudge more than erase, but that won't bother you. They'll be cheap, and you'll be happy. If you are however even a little persnickety, and those things I listed bother you, even a little bit, buy these. Life is short. Splurge a little. Get yourself a nice pencil. They write nicely, they erase cleanly, and they don't break or flex too easily. What's not to like (other than that rolling away from you thing)?

Pretty good pencils. I use them for the initial sketches for my artwork, and for general writing purposes. The erasers are surprisingly good - I was expecting them to leave those horrible pink streaks, but thankfully they don't, and they get rid of all the lead on the paper. Unfortunately, they do shed a lot of dust - meaning... they won't last long and will make a mess until then.As for sharpening, I didn't experience anything special. Half of them came out uneven, but of course I used a junky disposable school sharpener. I've yet to test it with a higher quality sharpener. I'll update this review once I test it out.While it doesn't sharpen to a fine point like I hoped, it does sharpen quickly. The wood is soft enough that just a turn or two in pencil sharpener resharpens it. The lead is also very soft - the pencil requires to be sharpened frequently as a consequence. I can't draw for more than 10 minutes without having to sharpen again. The good thing about it having soft lead is not much pressure is necessary to get it to perform. For every bad aspect, there is a good one that makes up for it, vice versa.So if this pencil was characterized a 'warrior' as its name entitles, it would be a nimble warrior, such as a samurai wielding a katana. Just like that sword - this pencil is sleek, delicate, and doesn't remain sharp long - but fulfills its purpose efficiently and effortlessly while it lasts.As another reviewer mentioned - they're much better than your typical school pencil - I find them ideal for quick and basic sketching/shading. They're more comfortable to grip since they're round, and I love they're black - they look really nice.I recommend them so long as you already have a decent sharpener, and plan to have them right next to these pencils at all times.

So my son is doing his homework and about every two minutes he stops to sharpen his pencil. . . I'm thinking he is just procrastinating and losing focus so I get on him about it and he shows me that his pencil keeps breaking and the lead just falls out. I tell my wife we need to purchase Dixon pencils because those are the best . . . surprise, surprise all his crappy pencils are Dixons. They just don't make them the same anymore.So I do a little research on what the best pencils are and not to my surprise I find a bunch of posts by school teachers saying they lose so much time because Dixon pencils along with so many other poorly made pencils force the kids to keep sharpening their pencils when the lead falls out frequently. Most of them had similar recommendations so I decided to purchase a few different brands to see which ones worked best for us. And so far we have been really happy with the quality of each of the following types that we tried.-Write Dudes USA Gold Premium Cedar No. 2. (Great all around pencil)-Write Dudes USA SIlver Wooden #2 (Great all around pencil)-Staedtler Rally Graphite #2 (Top notch)-General Pencil Company Cedar Pointe No. 2 Pencil (Very well priced and still great quality)-Paper Mate 12 Count #2 Mirado Black Warrior Lead Pencils, Medium Soft (Great pencils, nice darker color)I'd purchase any of the above again as long as they continue to make them the same way. I found a few other reviews by teachers who recommended others, but those few were in a much higher price range. Keeping it in a realistic price range the above 5 pencils are awesome. They write well and the lead does not break every two minutes. Perfect for keeping kids focused while doing their school work.