This Counts as Two, Right?

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 4; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

A while back I posted about a nifty four-piece set of Burnham Canasta Pencils:

Even though I still strive mightily to limit myself to American pencils (Burnham, for those who don’t know, is an English make), when a second telltale gold foil box showed up in an online auction, duty required me to have a closer look:

And of course, once I looked, I had to buy.  These two sets just go so nicely together:

The box lid says “Harrod’s” on the new addition – points off, since the Burnham Canasta Set lid is way cooler.  But the card suit imprints on the four pencils?  That more than levels the playing field!

There’s a saying in my house .... more of a warning, actually.  Two’s a coincidence, three’s a collection.  I’m going to count this as two items and cling to the notion that I’ve got a coincidence here.

Sort Of Against My Will

I really don’t want to get into collecting English pencils. I’m serious. This isn’t like my feeble protests of not being a "wood pencil guy" but continuing to buy them every so often – I really have made an effort not to buy pencils that aren’t American.

It’s not that I have anything against foreign pencils, because many are every bit as good or better than anything the American manufacturers produced, it’s just that I know myself too well. I buy one, and the next one I see that would look good next to it comes my way, and the next thing I know, I’m building shelves on another wall in the pencil room. I’m running out of walls.

So about the only exception I have made to my all-American stand has been English Eversharps, which fit in so nicely with my Eversharp collection that it just doesn’t seem right to exclude them.

This story, unfortunately, doesn’t involve an English Eversharp.

Late on the last day of the DC show, after I’d blown most of the cash I wanted to spend, Alan Hirsch comes up to me with a little box and wants to know what I think . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company