Portuguese pencil

The company

As far as I know, Viarco are the only Portuguese pencil manufacturers. Formed in 1907, they have been in exisence for over 100 years now. I get the feeling they are the pencils you would have used in school if you grew up in Portugal.

The pencil itself

The pencil is fairly plain, but stylish. A reasonable finish, a nice red colour.

I think the pencil is probably really the ‘Viarco 250’, and ‘Desenho’ is more a family moniker - apparently it is Portuguese for ‘drawing’. It doesn’t feel that much like a drawing pencil though - it doesn’t seem to have an extra thick barrel or an extra thick lead - it feels pretty much like a writing pencil.

How does it write

To be honest, I didn’t write this review immediately, and have forgotten a little the details of how I found this. That tells me something at least - that it was not immediately overly memorable. If I do remember though, it performed fairly well, and the tip held up quite well during use.

I do remember that it sharpened nicely, and if I remember rightly, there was a nice smell of cedar.

Sourcing

You can source these online outside of Portugal. I sourced mine however whilst in Portugal. There is a chain of shops in Portugal that specialise in selling items you may have remembered from your childhood - A Vida Portugesa who had stock of these, along with some other Viarco pencils, so I stocked up a little whilst there.