CW Pencil Enterprise
Many people have been lamenting the recent departure of CW Pencil Enterprise from the market. This Manhattan-based pencil specialist was run by Caroline Weaver, a giant in the hobby, who since 2014 has been central to getting it recognized and in the cultural conversation. Weaver has also written or contributed to several pencil-themed books on the brands, the tool and their histories.
CW was an essential resource in helping me get my hands on several brands that are hard to economically find in the formats I prefer. Musgrave’s higher-end offerings are generally widely available, but their low-end school pencils are something I was only able to obtain from CW, as Musgrave does not ship internationally. General’s is another US brand with minimal global reach, and such resources as CalCedar’s Pencils.com often have most of these products listed but out of stock, a common SEO strategy that is quite frustrating.
Caran d’Ache is another brand that limits access to its products in an attempt to preserve high prices through artificial scarcity. This tends to coincide with severe difficulty in finding retailers who sell Caran d’Ache products by the box, rather than individually. As many people who read my posts will know, I really enjoy the packaging of pencils as well as the pencils themselves, and CW was quite helpful in sending custom orders with the packages of many Caran d’Ache products.
CW Pencils was alas a casualty of the pandemic. Not the virus per se, but the public health response to it. Whilst businesses today are being rewarded for reducing or dropping mask mandates and capacity controls, CW always limited their customers’ and employees’ contacts to keep them safe. When many small businesses used the early days of the pandemic closures to launch aggressive online efforts, CW refused to ship entirely to keep their employees and local overburdened postal workers safe. When many businesses are using their online storefronts as a substitute for increased investment in a live retail presence, CW reduced their online offerings in order to focus on the needs of their local community. None of these, unfortunately were rewarded in the present market, and CW’s departure was perhaps an inevitable by-product of current cultural values. But they’ll surely be missed for it.
