GENERAL'S 3B Primo Charcoal Pencil 12/Box

This is General's premium pencil. These have turned out to be a great option -- like all soft charcoal pencils the tips break easily. using a craft knife may be the best bet, I find myself reaching for the craft knife to get stuck leads unstuck from my sharpeners anyway. I tried out three different brands, Derwent, Creatacolor 5.6mm leads with separate holder purchase and this. The cretacolor white is by far the best. For charcoal, the Derwent was a dud, had one pencil split apart while hand sharpening. Their white was scratchy and inconsistent. BTW with all of these remember to hand sharpen. The cretacolor wood holder has a fantastic feel in the hand. As far as the soft and medium charcoal, they are fine, but I find them even harder to sharpen. So using it for white, but Generals or Derwent for everything else, but replacing worn out soft with generals primo pencils. This particular one is equivalent to the Derwent soft. I have to say that the Derwent is consistent with the labeling when purchasing sets, the generals all seem fairly soft to me, not truly reflective of the label.

These are the best charcoal pencils on the market today in my opinion. I have used Derwent and Conte for years but their quality has deteriorated to the point of being useless. I was reluctant to try these since they are General pencils and I have not found that brand to be of artists quality. But these pencils have really changed that. I bought 4 boxes of the 3b and they came well packed and not one point was broken. The 3b produces dark shadows as well as subtle ones. They need to be sharpened with a razor blade and unlike other charcoal pencils did not break during sharpening. You can wipe away unwanted sketches during composition and fully erase them later. The finished drawings stay without fixing. Excellent.

Great product, but came in a generic box not good for gift giving.

Great product, great price

All is perfect . Thank you