A good pencil is hard to find. Several factors contribute to the greatness of a pencil. The feel of the wood, the smoothness of the paint coating, and even the quality of the graphite. But the single MOST telling factor is the eraser. The cardinal sin of all pencilry is having an eraser that doesn't erase. For truly, an eraser that cannot erase is hardly even an eraser at all. Such insolence will NOT be tolerated! I've been tricked into buying those cheaper pencils many a time, only to agonize for months afterwards as the uncomplying erasers smudge lead all over the place. I end up shelling out more money for those pencil-top erasers than I do for the pencils themselves. And can you even begin to put a price on all those mission-critical calculations that have been utterly ruined by lead smears? Unforgivable. Pencilmakers who make pencils with crappy erasers should be banned. In my book, the prime offender has hands down been Papermate pencils. I hereby boycott the purchase of Papermate pencils. I declare myself free from the smudges; no longer will pencil lead be permanent as ink. Errors shall thus forth be remedied.

"If the number 2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still number 2?"
~Unknown