Conté à Paris
La Compagnie Francaise des Crayons (CFC), France’s only remaining pencil manufacturer, produces the lovely Graphite 601 line of art pencils for Conté à Paris, as well as a wide range of other woodcase objects for that brand, and still manages a handful of bespoke imprints like Calepino. But the former - the namesake of the modern pencil-making process - still manages to sit at the top of my list of the best pencils I’ve ever used. What’s the secret to these amazing matte grey pencils? Let’s take a look.
In addition to using a softer-than-average graphite mix in just about every grade (rendering even the 2H and 3H usable - even preferable - for me), the wood used in this line is an amazing oddball. Super lightweight, but still incredibly hard and dense - no shreddy porous basswood or pine here. The sticks feel like nothing in your hand, but lay down an amazing line, and are my preferred pencil for all my art and drawing. Some people like the feel of a heavier and more substantially-weighted pencil, but trust me - these are amazing.
On top of these standard graphite pencils, Conté has similar woodcase offerings of coloured pencils, aquarelle, charcoal and pastel. I have heard poor reviews of the state of the colours and pastels when shipped through the mail (mostly severely broken leads due to their soft quality) so I have not tried these yet, but the charcoal pencils come in a variety of hardness ratings and lay down the smoothest, most opaque and matte black I have ever seen.
Conté used to put out a wider and more everyday-consumer line of pencils, as this recent vintage eBay find tells me, but today even their wonderful graphite line is available only in the artist tin of 12 (or individually from various retailers who either manage to buy in bulk or just break these 12-packs down). I would love to use these by the dozen in just the grades I like best (H for writing, 3H and 4B for drawing and shading), but I’ll have to settle for these quite dear 12-packs for the foreseeable future. If you have a chance, I highly recommend you grab one too!
