I have quite the pencil hobby; Along with lights and buses. Lighting and pencil hobby is slightly stronger than bus hobby though.

So I am curious, what pencils do yall typically use?

At school, I typically use a Dixon Ticonderoga #3H HARD pencil. I only discovered I had a few recently, so I tried #250 out and it was great, it could go for over a day without needing to be sharpened. So I got some more over the weekend and tomorrow will be #316's first day in use!

Mainly a Pentel P205 but sometimes I use a P207 to switch things up. I use a separate eraser because it feels illegal to use the eraser at the end lol.

During school I could never really be bothered to buy pencils, whatever I found on the floor or "borrowed" from the teacher would do.

During school I could never really be bothered to buy pencils, whatever I found on the floor or "borrowed" from the teacher would do.

Same, I would use ANY pencil that I found. If it wasn't dark enough, dip it I water. I tried mechanical pencils, and those were the only pencils that lasted longer than a year with me. But the lead always broke with little pressure.

The Pentel P205 looks pretty decent. I indeed to do not use the eraser at the end at ANY cost, absolutely not! I generally scribble out mistakes I make anyways...

Most people use mechanical pencils these days it seems-

On many mechanical pencils, the eraser hidden under the cap is actually good, and can be replaced by cutting chunks off of a normal one. Don't get me started oh the pink erasers on normal pencils, they act like crayons...

The Dixon Ticonderoga erasers all seem to be good, though I am not so sure about other brands...

Currently using a blue BiC mechanical pencil in two-tone blue with a white eraser.

I hardly ever use wooden pencils, and when I do, they're the rectangular carpenter pencils that you sharpen with a pocket knife.

I have cyclic favourites. When I was in high school, I used Venus Velvet (with the blue stripe on the eraser holder). There were two classrooms with brand-new quality pencil sharpeners. I always had about six of them in my pencil case, and I would sharpen every one of them so they would last me until I returned to that class.

In university, I switched to mechanical. I used a Staedtler Mars Techno 0.5 (now discontinued and high price on eBay). I still have it and use it occasionally.

After university, I had many favourites, but the two I like most are my Staedtler Mars Technico 2.0mm and my Stadtler Mars Micro 779 in 0.9. I find that the 0.9 lead is much more resistant than the smaller ones. I also like the springy cushion on the lead in the modern Staedtler Mars Micro.

Other than those, I have used and liked Pentel Twist Erase, various Faber Castell and several wood ones such as the now discontinued Mirado and the current production Dixon Ticonderoga. The blue Staedtler wood pencils also work nicely but I never really used them long term.

Side note : my son got a Halloween pencil recently. I was looking at the unsharpened tip while eating breakfast today, and the lead is way off centre. It just won't sharpen properly with a standard pencil sharpener... I think most people (including me) who are participating in this thread appreciate a quality pencil, however.

I definitely do appreciate a good pencil-

My pencil sharpener (the only one that works) unfortunately does not like #3 HARD lead, it just breaks it...

I'm trying to see if my primary pencil #316 can last to the end of the week without needing sharpening after I sharpened it yesterday morning. I bet it can-

I actually have quite a few Halloween pencils myself, about 20-30, most of them being from the same box...

Other than things like marking boards to cut, I rarely use pencils. Much prefer pens if I need to write something.

As far as what pencil, I don't care...a pencil is a pencil to me. I'd just buy whatever's cheapest.

Attached is a photo of all the pencils that ride in my pencil case besides my two loaner pencils (219 and 254). From top to bottom:

-89 (Mainly because it looks pretty)
-111
-137
-149
-260
-280 (recently replaced the out of service 262)
-315 (mistakenly number 262, renumbered to 315)
-316 (My #3 pencil!!)

Mostly whatever brand is provided at work. I don’t recall which.

One thing that the ocd in me can’t stand is how quickly the erasers on pencils wear down and then leave black marks. The pencil far outlasts it.

I even remember some pencils where the eraser was like a rock. Completely hard and unusable.

Apart from twistable long erasers on some mechanical pencils, I always use a separate one. My favourite is the Staedtler 528 stick eraser. I have worn down many wood pencils and the eraser was unused.

One of my least favorite things is seeing a used eraser on a pencil, the eraser to me is vital!

I sometimes use Pentel cap erasers, and sometimes I use Pentel rectangular prism erasers.

I haven't had any problems with Ticonderoga erasers, though I do have some Eberhard Faber pencils with rock hard erasers-