Our pick
Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil (Blue)
This inexpensive pencil is made of premium incense cedar. It is comfortable to hold, has a neatly painted exterior, and its eraser removes marks cleanly.
The Palomino Golden Bear #2 Pencil (Blue) is made of top-tier incense cedar, which has a uniform wood grain and a faintly woodsy smell when sharpened. Its hexagonal shape makes it comfortable to grip and resistant to rolling off your desk. It has a glossy, blue-painted barrel and contains a No. 2/HB core that makes smooth, dark marks.
Even though darkness and hardness varies among brands, No. 2 and/or HB pencils are widely considered to be the ideal lead grade for writing (and they’re required for many standardized tests), which makes this Golden Bear pencil a perfect choice for elementary school and beyond.
Aside from the much more expensive Palomino Blackwing 602, the azure-hue Golden Bear pencil is the best overall performer among the pencils we tested. It’s also a solid value, especially if you buy in bulk.
Budget pick
The Dixon Ticonderoga Classic Yellow Wood-Cased Pencil is not made of the same high-quality wood as our other picks—and we have reason to think it’s more prone to breaking or having an off-center core—but it is the best pencil we’ve seen in the budget price range (typically less than 20¢ per pencil).
In testing, it performed well in terms of writing ability, surpassed only by the Arteza #2 HB Wood Pencil (which is saddled with the worst eraser we tested) and far pricier pencils like the Palomino Blackwing 602.
The Ticonderoga Classic Yellow pencil’s eraser is just okay, but it scored well in comfort and sharpening ability.
Upgrade pick
Palomino Blackwing 602
This comfortable pencil has a replaceable eraser, an incense-cedar barrel, and a smooth, dark core. But it costs over twice as much as most writing pencils, and you can’t use it on standardized tests.
The Palomino Blackwing 602 is the most expensive pencil we tested, but it’s pretty much unsurpassed in quality.
It’s made of incense cedar, like our top pick, and it’s the only pencil we tested with a replaceable eraser (which, unlike most pencil erasers, has a rectangular shape that enables more detailed erasing). Its hexagonal body has slightly rounded corners, making it more comfortable to write with than most pencils, and it’s glazed in a velvety, dark silver paint.
Some of our testers had trouble sharpening the Palomino Blackwing 602 (especially the first time after they unboxed it; the same happened with our top pick)—but otherwise its biggest flaw is its price tag—more than $2 per pencil at the time of publication.
It is also likely to be rejected by standardized-test proctors because it doesn’t list a lead grade on the side (though its core is similar to that of a No. 2/HB pencil).
Also great
If you have trouble gripping hexagonal pencils or you just prefer a triangular barrel, look no further than the Faber-Castell Grip 2001 Graphite Pencil with Eraser.
It’s the only triangular pencil we’ve tested that we recommend; nearly all of our testers, many of whom don’t typically use triangular pencils, enjoyed using it.
It earned good marks in our writing, sharpening, and erasing tests, and its array of raised dots along the front end of the barrel give it a more comfortable grip than most pencils.
On the downside, it’s not made of incense cedar (as our top and upgrade picks are), it’s on the pricier side (about 80¢ per pencil at the time of publication), and it’s unavailable to buy in bulk.
