From humble beginings to luxury item

The perfect pencil - the perfect gift

How many writing instruments do you know about that can claim to be real "all-rounders"? And by this we mean the ability to write under water as well as in space, are long-lasting, undemanding and as writing instruments unaffected by climatic changes. Well, when you think about it, the pencil can do all this and more. Jumping first to our modern day, we take a look at the Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil - perfect indeed. This luxury version of the humble pencil sports a very stylish platinum-plated pencil extender with a built-in sharpener as well as a spring loaded clip to keep it in your pocket. The end of the pencil has an eraser cleverly hidden by a platinum-plated end cap. When using the perfect pencil you have everything you need for writing, correcting and sharpening and it can all be done with style. It is estimated that around 20,000 million black-lead and colour pencils for all kinds of writing and drawing are produced all over the world every year from various kinds of wood. European manufacturers produce about 2,000 million pencils a year, whilst approximately 50% of the 20,000 million are produced in China. The "lead pencil" is in fact not made from lead, but graphite. The first documented pencil in England which would have been a peice of graphite stuck between two peices of wood goes as far back as 1565. Extensive graphite deposits were discovered in the Cumbrian hills which were initially thought to be lead. It was this "lead" that was used to make crude pencils. It was an 18th century chemist called Karl Wilhelm Scheel who showed that the substance was in fact quite different from lead and he named it "graphite" from the Greek word for writing.

Environmental and ethical programmes

The perfect Pencil from Graf von Faber-Castell is the perfect gift and can be purchased as an individual writing instrument or in a desk set with spare pencils and erasers. There are two versions available - black and brown. The wood used to make the Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil is sourced from a sustainable wood supply. Located in the middle of the Brazilian savannah more than 2,500 kilometres away from the Amazon rainforest, Faber-Castell initiated a pioneering plantation project nearly two decades ago on former grassland with had poor sandy soil. This proved to be a unique forestry project and along with Faber-Castell's environmental and ethical programme has resulted in Faber-Castell being awarded a Chain of Custody certificate by the Forest Stewardship Council in 2003.

The perfect Pencil

by: Tania Ferreira