Musgrave

I made my first buys from CW Pencils, Pencils.com and Nero’s Notes, which are among the few online shops where I can get Musgrave pencils from the US. Whilst I tend to focus my collecting on things of European or Canadian manufacture, Musgrave has a lot of nice stuff that is very affordable and usable.

The Tennessee Reds wood box and pencils inside both have a strong cedar fragrance, and don’t write too bad. The Harvest Professionals are indeed nicer than your average HB, and the Test Scoring 100 make a very rich, dark line whilst holding a point quite well - a rare combination.

I especially enjoy the feel and weight of the round 600 News line, which I’ve been using for dark-shade drawing in place of much more expensive soft-grade European pencils.

I purchased two other packs that I have yet to open and sharpen: the Ceres and Bugle. The Ceres appear to be a bargain-level standard yellow pencil, and the Bugle are nice untipped raw wood sticks with a smooth round barrel. I’ll update if I find anything interesting to say about them when I try them.

I’ve heard that the erasers on these are poor but for the few small erasing jobs I’ve done so far they’ve seemed ok. So basically, they’re all nice pencils, nothing special. The main thing I have as criticism for Musgrave is that their non-premium products have wretched packaging. I can’t imaging a blister pack or a simple cardboard backing inside the existing plastic bags to make a huge dent in the exceptionally low price of these various low-end pencils, but it would surely improve the durability of the product in the current atmosphere of small-pack delivery and reshipment, as opposed to the mass shipments to large stores and distributors that perhaps Musgrave is accustomed to. I also assume more attractive packaging could increase Musgrave’s chances of merchandising their products at more retail outlets one day when we can all shop again.