Caran technalo 779 water soluble HB
Some time ago we did a trip through Europe. We stopped in a number of places, and as part of the trip I planned and tried to acquire some European pencils that I would struggle to find locally.
The outcome was the acquisition of a number of pencils crossing a range of manufacturers and qualities. Along with the pencils I also picked up a wrap to bring them home safely:
One of the places I’d recommend you stop by, if you are a pencilophile and in the area of Porto, Portugal, then I would say you should at least visit, it not stay at, the 1829 Hotel. The whole hotel used to be a stationery shop. Now a hotel, they have kept a high class stationery shop in reception, and they have some very nice wares. The pencil wrap came from there.
The company
The pencil is from Caran D’ache, a Swiss pencil company founded in 1915. They are based in Geneva, and I’ve only ever seen them making quality items.
The pencil itself
Here we are looking at the technalo 779 HB water soluble pencil.
I didn’t realise this was a water soluble pencil when I bought it, and didn’t realise until a short while after I started testing it. I didn’t test the solubility at all, and just used this as an every day normal pencil.
The point came reasonably sharpened (I do like the striations), but it was not until I put a long point on the pencil until I realised the pencil has a thicker than normal core - as is generally the way with artists pencils. Apparently these have a 3mm lead. I don’t have a reference to what a ‘normal’ pencil lead thickness is though.
The pencil itself is a nice sort of matt finish, and has a fairly nice gloss tail cap.
How does it write
This pencil writes nicely. Quite smooth, quite dark. It wears at a medium rate - not too fast but noticeable. I enjoyed using this pencil through the week.
Sourcing
I picked mine up I think in an art shop in Paris. You can get these in the U.K. from specialist pencil suppliers. I’m seeing the listed at something like £2.30 each. Definitely not a cheap pencil.