Caran d’Ache

From CultPens and CW Pencils I ordered a variety of items from Caran d’Ache, a brand quite prized by artists and writers alike.

Caran d’Ache seems to stake its reputation on being expensive and being Swiss, and therefore being good. Whilst these three things may often coincide, in the case of their graphite pencils, I don’t find it to be true. Their lead grades are the hardest of all cores I’ve tried, and I find it difficult to write with anything harder than a 2B, both in their woodcase pencils and the leads for their clutch and mechanical pencils. The SwissWood pencils nice looking but not very easy-writing as they are only available in HB. The GrafWoods are a much better choice, being available in a variety of grades and thus allowing me to choose softer cores. Both lines do feel great in the hand, being ever-so-slightly thicker than a standard hex pencil.

I could not find softer-grade Caran d’Ache-branded lead refills for the 2mm Fixpencil and .7mm mechanical pencil they offer, so I got lead refills rom Staedtler and Faber-Castell, including some colour leads for the clutch pencil. From Faber-Castell I also got some of their very attractive black erasers. They’re pretty, but I find the standard Staedtler Mars Plastic works a bit better and has a firmer structure that holds up better to my big erase jobs (common when I’m revising and reorganizing my class notes or lesson plans).

I used to be really into mechanical pencils. They’re great for notes and writing when not at home or in reach of a good sharpener, but in these days of confinement, they’ll likely sit around a while. The clutch pencil thing is just something I remember from hanging out in my dad’s office as a kid, and felt like reliving it a little. Except he used super-hard drafting leads. They should be fun to play with again.

Some other Caran d’Ache items in the packages included their lower-end Eidelweiss and Natura lines. The lower price essentially translates to a standard size barrel, and the cores match the brand’s signature super-hard grading. I’ll likely use all the HB+ grades just for light drawing projects rather than writing.

Finally, I grabbed a waterbrush to try my hand at some watercolour work, which I haven’t done in forever. I like the Caran d’Ache model because it matches the form factor of a felt pen rather than having a large bulbous reservoir like other brands tend to.

I’m unlikely to do a whole lot of Caran d’Ache collecting in the future unless I win the lottery due to their fairly steep prices with few material advantages, but they do have some nice looking things, to be sure.