## History of the Blackwing pencil The Blackwing 602 was introduced by the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company in the early 1930s (production is usually dated to 1934). Two things set it apart from every other pencil on the shelf: a core that blended graphite and clay with wax, giving an unusually dark, smooth line without the smearing of a plain soft lead, and a flat, rectangular extendable ferrule holding a replaceable eraser secured by a small aluminum clip. Stamped on the barrel opposite the brand mark was its famous boast: "Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed." The 602 became a quiet tool of the American creative class. John Steinbeck wrote with it obsessively — his son recalled the ritual of sharpening 24 Blackwings before starting the day's pages — and it turns up in the hands of E.B. White, Truman Capote, and composers including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, John Williams, and Stephen Sondheim, who used and hoarded them for decades. Chuck Jones drew Bugs Bunny and his other Looney Tunes characters with Blackwings, and animators at Warner Bros. and Disney (Don Bluth among them) kept the pencil a studio staple. Corporate churn eventually killed it. Eberhard Faber made the pencil until 1988, when the brand passed to Faber-Castell (1988–1994) and then Sanford (1994–1998). By the late 1990s sales were modest, and when the stock of the little clips that secure the eraser in the ferrule ran out, Sanford chose not to retool. Production ended in 1998. Discontinuation is what made it a legend. Devotees bought up remaining stock, and single pencils began selling on eBay for $40 or more — an absurdity that became the pencil's defining story (Sondheim reportedly kept a stash; boxes now trade for far more). The blog Blackwing Pages, written by the late Sean Malone, documented the original pencil's history in obsessive detail and remains the best primary-source account. In 2010, California Cedar Products (CalCedar), whose Palomino brand had already earned comparisons to the 602, acquired the lapsed Blackwing trademark and revived the line: first the soft Palomino Blackwing (2010), then a re-engineered Blackwing 602 (2011), and later the Pearl and the limited-edition Blackwing Volumes series honoring figures from the pencil's creative lineage. The original wax-graphite formula was never recovered — the modern pencils, made in Japan, are a re-engineering rather than a continuation, a point purists (Malone included) were quick to press. The revival nonetheless turned Blackwing from a dead trademark into arguably the most fashionable pencil brand in the world, slogan, flat ferrule and all. See [[Pens and Pencils]] for the rest of the collection. Sources: [Blackwing 602 — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwing_602), [The Story of the $40 Pencil — Blackwing](https://blackwing602.com/pages/40-dollar-pencil), [Famous Blackwing Users — Blackwing](https://blackwing602.com/pages/famous-users), [No Ordinary Pencil: A Portrait of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 — Blackwing Pages](https://blackwingpages.com/no-ordinary-pencil/), [Guide to Blackwing Pencils — The Paper Mouse](https://www.thepapermouse.com/blogs/pencil-guide/guide-to-blackwing-pencils)