Helix Oxford

If I remember, I picked this up in a pack, possibly a school style stationry pack aimed predominantly at school attendees.

The company

The Helix company feels like one of the old school classic UK pencil companies, and a quick surf shows that indeed it was a family owned company. It looks like it had a few wobbles back around 2012 or so, and was bought up and sustained by Maped - a French company. I didn’t know that. Mabye that has something to do with Maped becoming more common place in the shops here.

The pencil itself

The pencil is reasonably plain. It is a fairly nice blue, but the finish is lets say ‘to a budget’. The ones I have are eraser topped.

I don’t know what sort of wood the pencil is made from - it is not cedar (does not have the smell), but it is quite a nice pink red colour.

How does it write

The pencil itself writes OK, but it was scratchy. The lead seemed a bit gritty - you know, one of those leads where every now and then you seem to run into a gritty bit and just have to ‘work through it’. This is a pretty basic school pencil really.

Sourcing

In the UK is pretty easy. You can find sets of Oxford stationry in many stationers in the UK - especially if you are buying a set that has maybe a pencil tin or a compass or a protracter - then there is a fair chance you might be buying a set from Helix