Musgrave Pencil Company Tennessee Red Pencil, Wood-Cased Graphite #2 HB Soft, Un-Sharpened, Eastern Red Cedar Pencil, 12-Pack in Box

Product Information

Buyer's Note: Because of the nature of the wood - the delightfully aromatic Eastern Red Cedar - some cores may be slightly off-center and wood may have modest visible wear. My answer, in short, is this; if you have the pennies to spare then treat yourself or if you know someone who is passionate about stationery these will make an excellent gift. If you are looking for a high-end pencil with a classic design and a real-wood feel, the Musgrave Tennessee Red is tough to beat. When you open the box you are met by the gentle scent of cedar wood or to be precise, in this case, Eastern Red Cedar, from which the box and the pencils are made. The box is smooth but as far as I can tell the wood is unfinished whilst the pencils within have a lacquer finish which helps to bring out the depth of colour in the wood. The Mitsubishi 9800 is an everyday writing pencil, similar to the 9852 but without an eraser. The 9800 is a really good looking pencil that sells in a great green paint color with high quality HB or B lead. Other hardnesses are sold but they aren’t as readily available in the US. I really like the printing on these pencils as well as the thought that they use “Matured” wood, which is noted on the side.

The HB pencils have a beautiful natural finish, and have a white eraser attached with a gold and maroon ferrule. They are sold unsharpened. I suppose a review of these can’t be made without mentioning the centered-ness of the cores. There are a few off center cores, only one or two of mine were badly off center. The rest were fine and in what I would think of as well within usability limits. More on this point in a minute. Let’s talk about that delicious core. It’s dark. It’s smooth. With my long point sharpeners it’s perfect. It’s also great for sketching. I’d say this is a good multi use pencil, you can get some decent gradation out of it and as such wouldn’t need to carry a full pencil case for writing or sketching.I’ve previously mentioned that the Techograph 777, Mars Lumograph 100, and Castell 9000 leads (in HB) are all sufficiently similar that the differences are nuanced and hard to describe. The Musgrave’s lead isn’t at all hard to distinguish. It is softer, smoother, and darker than those three European pencils, and leaves a darker line. It also has an aspect of crumbling or disintegration, and leaves more graphite dust in the area of use. Markings erase as easily as those of the European pencils.

So how were these slats made? Perhaps pioneer fellow Tennessee manufacturer Wagner Pencil, who process American timber into pencil slats, gave assistance. Or perhaps Musgrave engaged with a wood processor not part of the pencil industry to create these slats. In any case, it is very interesting. Along with the Tennessee Red, heritage pencil maker Musgrave announced another product just as interesting to pencil aficionados – a pencil made from rediscovered vintage slats. The 9852 is a great all-round pencil with a classic look despite coming from Mitsubishi Pencil Co., who doesn’t tend to include erasers on many of their pencils. This is a nice pencil for general writing with a very good eraser and a deep bronze-colored ferrule that just looks plain cool. I really enjoy the writing on the side as well, saying “Master Writing” and “* HB *” prominently on three sides.

American heritage pencil maker Musgrave introduced a very interesting product in 2019: The Tennessee Red pencil. The pencil’s notable feature is the use of Eastern Red Cedar ( Juniperus virginiana), the original American pencil wood. The pencil is very fragrant and visually interesting – each pencil is different, and many contain both cedar sapwood (pale colour) and cedar heartwood (dark colour). Musgrave is a family-owned, 100-year-old pencil factory located in Tennessee that prides itself on making a pencil that is simple, utilitarian, and yet the starting point for creativity, education, and human connection. The Musgrave Bugle 1816 is a round, eraserless, light toned (Bass wood?), natural finish pencil with an HB/#2 graphite core. The body of the pencil is coated with a clear glossy lacquer and has a white text imprint reading “Musgrave Pencil Inc. Shelbyville Tenn.” and “Bugle 1816,” flanked by an image of a bugle on either side. This pencil feels light weight in my hand, and the graphite seems a mite softer and darker to me than a standard #2. You can see some indications of grain and natural striations in the wood, and while the base color of the wood is lighter, the Musgrave Bugle 1816 is otherwise very similar to the basic pencils made by Henry David Thoreau and his family, as CW Pencils notes. Musgrave 909 Ceres Musgrave 909 Ceres Their pencils aren’t generally available in Canada – at least the ones they make in their own name. Home Depot carpenter’s pencils and other private label products they manufacture seem to be more common. I’ve written previously about some Unigraphs that I once found.

If I could have tweaked the design of this pencil at all, I might have gone for a silver or dark pewter ferrule but otherwise, I think this is an exceptional pencil at a great price. Inside the box is a dozen natural finish Tennessee Cedar pencils with gold ferrules and bright white erasers. The branding is printed in red foil on the natural, hex pencils. There is one physical difference apart from the eraser – the hexagonal shape is much less rounded than the Castell or Mars. You can feel the edges of the pencil quite clearly. I really like this. Vintage pencils had similarly unrounded edges. The Musgrave Harvest 320 is another yellow hex body with a brown stripe in the ferrule, and a pink eraser. The imprint is in gold foil script (sorry it’s such a poor photo). The Harvest 320 is a reasonably smooth, perfectly pleasant pencil, a reliable #2/HB. The Harvest 320 also comes in a #1 graphite, and has a new sibling, the Musgrave Harvest 320 Pro. I haven’t yet tried the Harvest 320 #1, but I plan to. Musgrave My-Pal 2020 Musgrave My-Pal 2020 State of the Art: Filling a Sketchbook | Comfortable Shoes Studio on Review: Handbook Trav-e-logue SeriesOverall, I am very impressed with these pencils and the box will be something I keep pencils in long after I have run out of the Tennessee Red’s; I think it’s a wonderful idea I note that just like Mrs. Strong, Musgrave has found a way to sell a pencil at the price point of the Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil. I’m not a professional marketer, but I salute Musgrave for this breakthrough. To summarize, there are some challenges, but I really like the story of this pencil. Telling me that the slat is 90 years old grants a lot of forgiveness. Technically, the lead isn’t off centre between the slats – the issue is more that one slat is twice the height of the other. From another perspective, Import Genius says that Musgrave’s top international suppliers (ranked by number of containers imported) are:

These are my favorite pencils for working in my garage, woodworking particular. I find that the red is really easy to see against any shade of wood and, being a pencil, it erases almost as well as a standard grey graphite so you get better visibility. The only downside of these pencils is that they have a fragile graphite so you need to keep them blunt and not push too hard when using them. I really love these pencils. They’re a treat, and were particularly welcome companions on dark days this winter. I’m going to buy more when I can, so that I can share the joy. Musgrave Single Barrel 106 Musgrave Single Barrel 106I also was given two free pencils in a sleeve, a Musgrave 600 News and Musgrave Bugle. I loved the dark, smooth lead of the News, but I broke the tip instantly. It seems perfect for sketching! I didn’t like the Bugle, it was too light and scratchy. Both pencils felt lightweight without a ferrule and eraser. The name was more of a no-brainer, as we’d internally called the pencil prototype “The Tennessee Red Cedar Pencil” for months. By the time we came to the design phase, the name “Tennessee Red™” just came to us. It is worth noting that we did not give this pencil a customer-facing number. Just like the greats who go by first name only, we believe this one and only pencil needed no number to be differentiated from its pencil contemporaries. And while it’s not technically a mononym (á la Beyoncé, Madonna, or Prince), perhaps we could dare call this hardworking American classic “The Boss” of pencils. I’m truly torn on these pencils, but I still use them fairly often so I’ll include them on this list. Private companies of course don’t reveal their internal business, but in some countries (including the US), there are public customs records that show import activity. Records from Import Genius show that in the last two years, Musgrave’s imports include: Item Uni Mitsubishi 9850 HB “Smooth Writing Pencil for Office Use”. Similar to the Tombow 2558 and Palomino HB, this Japanese office pencil writes a smooth, dark line, and the cedar wood sharpens well. The glossy dark burgundy barrel MAY have been the tipping point for me here….