Plum Sykes is the author of Wives Like Us (Harper Collins), out May 14.
After years of slightly dreading dear friends arriving to stay at my house in the English countryside for the weekend bearing an unwanted “house gift,” I have developed a tactic to avoid disappointment for both parties: If an imminent guest asks, “What can I bring?” I reply, “Yourself, darling.” If they insist (which can make me feel rather triggered if I’m being honest), I’ll say, “I love the Diptyque Baies candle.” But occasionally a gift makes the heart sing in ways that even the giant 1.5 kg., five-wick Diptyque Baies candle can’t. A few years ago, I think it was around Christmas 2019, a Harrods box arrived wrapped in the famous olive-green paper and tied with a golden bow. Inside was a black rectangular box, and inside the box, sitting upon a bed of plush white velvet, was a pencil.
To call it the jewel in the crown of pencils would not be an exaggeration. Let me describe it: a long, narrow shaft of black ribbed Californian cedarwood enrobes the lead; a tiny white eraser is concealed in a rose-gold cap on the end; a rose-gold “extender” on the other, with a clip on one side, hides a sharpener that can refine the lead to a lethal point in seconds. This was the latest iteration of the Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil, first designed in 1993 by Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell. It was an evolution of the Pocket Pencil created in 1885 by his ancestors the Faber family, who began manufacturing pencils outside Stein, Germany, in 1761. (They are the oldest pencil manufacturers in the world, and there is still nothing, let’s face it, like German engineering whether we are talking cars, pencils, or refrigerators.) But to return to that moment when I lifted the pencil from the box: It was weighty, and when I put the extender over the eraser cap on the end, it balanced the pencil perfectly. I was ecstatic. This was a thoughtful present from someone who knew me well — I write all the first drafts of my manuscripts, whether it’s for a novel or articles, in pencil on a yellow legal pad. When I started using the Perfect Pencil, I noticed a difference in the feel of this pencil compared with ordinary ones: The lead was smooth not scratchy; it made a beautiful sharp mark and didn’t smudge; my hand could float across the page without getting stiff as it can with a pen and all the essentials for authoring — writing, correcting, and sharpening — were wrapped into one beautiful little package. Never again was I going to lose my sharpener or cast around for an eraser.
The Perfect Pencil even caused me to elevate my writing paper: When I noticed a friend using a Smythson’s A4 ring bound notepad, which has a gilded edge and featherweight paper in the famous blue color, I ran out and bought one. Writing on the Smythson pad with the heavenly pencil — well, it was a dream. I admit this pencil isn’t exactly the budget option. I bought the platinum-topped pencil with the tobacco-colored lead for a friend for her birthday, and it set me back around $310. (But she adored it.) And, the refills aren’t cheap. The leads are around $40 for four, the erasers around $15. You have to order them online as very few bricks-and-mortar stores stock them. But this pencil will be with me for life, it’s become part of my signature as an author, and honestly, in all these years I’ve only ordered new lead once. A small price to pay for what I’m calling the Mont Blanc of pencils.
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