Musgrave Pencils 

😀What a great video, Marty. Heartwarming and informative. Love watching you draw and have always enjoyed your voice. You make an excellent narrator!

When I was a kid in the 1970s in California, these were the pencils we used in school. Not only were they exceptional pencils, but I loved the fact that my name was on them. Glad that they are still making an excellent product - think I'll buy some!

Thank God for Musgrave for remaining to be a strong USA manufacturer of affordable pencils and remaining strong through the decades! THANK YOU MUSGRAVE❤️👏🏼

Wonderful Americana story, loved the clip of the man holding the large group of pencils. It is terrific that they are still in business. These would make a great gift for any artist with reference to your video. Hope you and your family are well and staying warm and dry in this winter of extreme weather. Look forward to warm weather and maybe an on the road video from you and your wife. All the best and thanks for the video. Essie

Musgrave Pencils… I like them 1. I like they have a very prominent and defined hexagonal shape 2. Erasability on most is not too bad My only cons… 1. Average to poor point retention 2. Often times difficult to sharpen to a point Some of their Pencils are great, but others are disappointing and leaves much to be desired. However, I’m still very thankful to them ❤️

A weapon of mass creation? 😂 They do really look like nice pencils. I doubt that I can find these here in the EU, but if by any chance I should come across them I will give them a try.

Hi Owings, I tested 12 different Musgrave pencils last year, with one unique and spectacular pencil in the lot: The Musgrave 600 News. The 600 News stands out as the most versatile dark pencil I've ever tested--and I've tested over 1100 pencils, virtually every major commercially available pencil. I don't do subjective tests. I designed and built equipment to test very specific properties: darkness, softness, smoothness, pressure sensitivity, blackness range, and 21 other properties. When I say the 600 News is 'versatile', I mean specifically it has a medium pressure sensitivity of P9 on a 20-point scale. The reason this is spectacular will be apparent and of immediate interest to any graphite artist. You simply cannot find a truly dark pencil in the middle range of pressure sensitivity. While you *can* get a light line with a very dark pencil, you achieve this only by barely touching the pencil to paper. The 600 News is different, marvelously different, because you can achieve a range of values from light to dark with this pencil. You can't do that with a Faber-Castell 9000 6B, Mitsubishi Hi-Uni 6B, Staedtler 8B, or any other commercially available dark pencil, dark defined as D16 or higher on the 20-point darkness scale (which actually goes to D24 for graphite, D40 for carbon and charcoal). They all have pressure sensitivities of P13 or higher, typically around P16, which means if you do anything more than barely touch the paper, you're going to get a dark line. The 600 News has D21, S16, P9, and L12 (smoothness L12 on the 20-point smoothness scale). Now, the way they may be achieving the impossibly perfect P9 is indicated by the very LOW smoothness value of L12. You just don't see low smoothness in dark graphite. You DO see it, of course, in carbon and charcoal, and my suspicion is that they are adding small amounts of very fine carbon to bring up the darkness, which will also force down the smoothness. At this point you may shrug your shoulders. 'Staedtler and Faber-Castell offer hybrid graphite/carbon pencils. It's nothing new.' Here your first reaction will mislead you, because Musgrave's 600 News is different from those hybrids. I don't even know that it IS a hybrid, I'm only guessing. I wrote to them over a year ago about this. They never responded. But you can test the F-C and Staedtler hybrids and compare to the 600 News, and you'll find a very distinct difference. First, the 600 News is smoother (The Staedtler 8B has L4, the 600 News has L12), but most importantly, again, the dark F-C and Staedtler hybrids are hyper-sensitive to pressure, so effectively you cannot get a light line unless you barely graze the paper, while with the 600 News you can get a nice range with reasonable hand pressure. It's simply the most amazing dark pencil I've ever tested. I found nothing special about the Tennessee Red. In my testing it was a quite ordinary HB-range pencil: D10, S5, L9, P8. The softness of S5 is a little low, but low softness seems to be a characteristic of Musgrave pencils, and may again indicate they're adding a touch of carbon to all their pencils, but especially in the 600 News. Compare the #2 909 Ceres (D12, S8, L8, P11) and the #2 1816 Bugle (D9, S4, L7, P6). While the #2 Bugle is 75 percent as dark as the #2 Ceres, it has only half the softness, meaning it leaves less than half the graphite on the page relative to the #2 Bugle. You might not immediately pick up on that fact, but if you use the pencils for a while and compare, you should find a performance difference between the two, especially if you're drawing with them. The #2 Bugle has a D/S ratio that's better attuned to writing, while the #2 Ceres is a better choice for drawing. If you want to understand the several 20-point scales I've devised, you'll need to read my book, Pearson's Graphite 2015, available online and at your favorite bookstore. Cheers!

I really like Musgrave. I’ve tried the pencil king, harvest pro, 600 News, and tenn red. The Reds look amazing and the cores are phenomenal but the QC on the reds is bad. Half my cores are off center and where the ferrules meet the cedar many of them are splintered, canted, or some wood extends way beyond it. I’ve ordered the cedar box with 24 more reds just to get some decent ones. The 600 is just luscious but not really practical for writing which is what I use it for.

Note: That's the Harvest #2 Professional. For folks buying it, make sure you buy the right one as opposed to the regular, non-Cedar Harvest #2 (which is still super smooth).

I have tried the Musgrave harvest professional #2 and I find them superior to the Mitsubishis and Kitaboshis I have tried. I also enjoy that Musgrave pencils are manufactured at home. Thank you so much for your video review!

Since I live in Norway now, I asked my brother to pick me up the Tennessee Reds. In tried sending him the money to pay for them but he bought them as a gift for me ❤️ I can’t wait until he ships them here 🤩

It's curious to see this video when I see very bad reviews of their products everywhere.... from a very hard wood to a brittle mine I guess I should try them too.

Please come back more I’d love to see you do more watercolour and reviews maybe even some handmade ones., I hope your well we’ve missed you

Have you tried General's pencils? I wonder how the Musgrave pencils compare. Right on the General's box, there's a phrase at the top of the box, Trusted By Artists Since 1889. They're made with Sustained Yield Incense Cedar Wood. The General's are good pencils. The Musgrave's look like good pencils.

I definitely need to try the Unigraphs and the Tennessee Reds! Great review thank you

Plus we plant two trees for every one harvested.

After Jesus, Pencil is the only thing, that can make me happy! Sketching is the best hobby I ever had! I also love writing with pencils, especially with the Pentel Kerry or the Faber Castell Pitt Graphite Matt! My alltime favorite pencils, are the Faber Castell Aquarelle (water soluble), then the 9000 and the Pitt Graphite Matt, as also their Charcoal pencils. The best mechanical pencils, in terms of performance ( precision that leads to more beautiful handwriting and way better drawing) are the: Pentel Graphgear 500, Pentel Kerry, Pentel P205. Lead holders: Faber Castell TK 4600/TK9400, Koh-I-Noor 5900, Koh-I-Noor 5347 For writing, Pentel Kerry can't be beat. Koh-I-Noor 5900 loaded with a Faber Castell 2B lead, is the best lead holder for writing. The rest, are the best tools for drawing/sketching!

Noooo don’t erase just move to a different spot on the page then you can see your progression and so can we and I loved them all

PS winter time would be a great time for you and Steve to make a video, we n e e d a good visit😁👩‍🎨☺️

Terrific video. I love Musgrave Pencils, too!

Fantastic company, fantastic pencils, fantastic customer service. Musgrave knocks it out of the park in every area. From the product, to the price, to being a great community partner.

great video! I enjoyed everything about it especially your lettering and drawings. Gonna checkout those reds in 4B look beautiful- thanks again

WOW So Brilliant Work, Congratulations, Wishing you more and more Successes, greetings and Blessings, 💜💐🌹

Those are pretty pencils!

Hey Marty! I just watched this video and was so excited to find out Musgrave Factory is in my backyard! We live just a short drive away. I am going to call them today and see if it is possible to visit the factory. How fun! Thanks for this very interesting review of their pencils.

So happy with my purchase. I wanted to support them so I ordered their variety sampler pack, their rectangular erasers, their double blade/sided pencil sharpeners (first time I've ever owned that type), and their dot grid notebook (wow the pages are sturdy) My purchase was mailed out quickly, I highly recommend them. Thanks Marty for good videos like this one.

Wonderful video, Marty! Great to see these old photographs. I've never heard of these pencils before. They are wonderfully packed and yes, these Tennessee Red ones look gorgeous. I love to use cedar essential oil, it smells so rich and deep. I paid close attention to the way you hold the pencil while drawing and I will try to imitate it. Going to write to you soon, Marty. Best wishes! 🙋🏻‍♀🌳✨

This is a tough business to be in. I use pencils a lot but they never seem to end.

So good to see a new video from you Marty, you’re missed on RU-vid.

Wonderful video!!! Made me kinda wistful and dreamy...🤗🤗🤗

Great video Marty! I'll check this company out!!!!

Absolute love. ❤️✏️😍

I'm going to have to try a set of these.

I have loved these pencils for some time very good video---try the 600 news I us them in place of an ebony pencil.

Great video, Marty, introducing a long-standing traditional company that, to be honest, I'd never heard of before. It's always refreshing to find art supplies that haven't switched their manufacturing to China (I'm looking at you Winsor & Newton's Cotman range!) Those Tennessee Red pencils were so irresistible that I've just ordered a pack of 12 and look forward to doing more pencil sketching with them (I'm mainly a line and wash sketcher nowadays but would love to get back to those early innocent days of just pulling out a pencil and a sheet of paper). Hope you and the family are keeping well - me and the missus and the dog are still doing OK here in Florida, even if we're older, moldier and more rickety than last year LOL. Kind regards, Brian.

Thanks Marty. I'm going after a box of Tennessee red! I'm taking a drawing course from Lindsay Weirich and I'm really starting to appreciate pencils. Thanks again. 💜

So happy to see you 🦋🦋🦋

Lovely video.

USA 💖

Great history. Lovely look and feel. Horrible quality. American quality indeed, lol.