Conté à Paris Pierre Noire B Sketching Pencil

This pencil is great for sketching on newsprint, I use it for the type of quick sketch that artists on the West Coast of U.S do.They leave nice, very rich dark mars.My only complaint would be that these do hapen to break quite often while sharpening, which has never been the case withmy Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils for example.

I haven't used many charcoal pencils but I could tell the difference straight away with this one. It is thicker than average pencils and doesn't break easily. Even the wood feels of good quality when you sharpen it with a razor.

Lovely thick creamy black - goes well with my Prismas and Polychromos.

These are either factory rejects or fake versions, I ordered 5 - 4 of which were split visibly down the side through the wood and to the charcoal. Because of the cracks,I have been unable to sharpen them to anything usable. The wood feels an inferior quality to Conte a Paris, and there is excess glue inside which is unusual. I use Conte a lot, I am surprised to see these surpass the quality checks. I urge other serious artists to use an alternative supplier.Not just disappointed but pushing work back due to waiting for delivery from another supplier.

nice

Awesome pencil especially on smooth newsprint if you can find it

Great product.

Unfortunately I have encountered the same problems as other 1* reviewers. No sooner do I get a useable length of charcoal they break - and the glue doesn’t help. If the next pencil is as bad I will return them. This will be the first time I have ever had to return an item bought through Amazon!