Thursday Drops: Last Minute Gifts and Unique New Arrivals! Craft Design Technology, Graphilo, and Musgrave!

Well, it’s the week before Christmas, so if you’re relying on the internet to get you something shipped, mailed, and delivered in time, the best-case scenario is that you roll the dice and you luck out and it arrives on the 23rd or the 24th. There are simply no guarantees at this point. That said, we are here to help you in-person, and we have a ton of cool stuff that’s arrived in-store, including several recent Japan shipments containing Craft Design Technology, Graphilo, and more! If you’re short on ideas, you can check out our Holiday Gift Guide, and most of what we highlight there continues to be in stock.

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These CDT Pentel Sign Pens, featuring a soft brush tip, have been heavily requested by in-store and online customers.

Craft Design Technology is a design house based in Japan and the U.K., best known for partnering with manufacturers on specialized custom versions of classic stationery items such as the Zebra Sharbo Multi Pen, Pentel Sign Pen, Pilot Frixion, and more. I have followed their work for years and am thrilled to be able to offer teir goods directly. As discussed in Tuesday’s post, we’ve also recently added Graphilo to our lineup of specialty Japanese papers, and people seem to be enjoying it because it’s flying out the door. Finally, we’re excited to restock on many of our Musgrave pencils, including the Heritage collection sets that offer a way to try out different Musgrave pencils and also have a cool pencil-themed case and pencil cup.

Our Nashville shop is open this week from 1-6pm on Thursday and Friday, and from 10am-6pm on Saturday. Check the shop page and on our Google profile for hours.

1. Craft Design Technology x Zebra Multifunctional Pen. Years ago, the Zebra Sharbo was the trendy multi pen, known for its D1 gel refills that ran out in approximately 2 hours. Craft Design Technology has partnered with Zebra to release it’s own design in matte black and silver, substituting the gel refills for low-viscosity ballpoints and a .5mm mechanical pencil. For those who find other multi pens too long and clunky, this one is almost perfectly balanced.

2. Craft Design Technology x Pilot Frixion 3 Multi Pen. Yes, the Pilot Frixion comes in a Dr. Grip-style 3-slot multi pen, complete with three different ink options and the Frixion eraser. Available in CDT’s dark green colorway. Refills available separately by individual color or a multi-pack.

3. Craft Design Technology x Pentel Tradio Plastic Fountain Pen. A hybrid between a fountain pen and a fineliner, the Tradio adds a touch of softness to your writing to make it more expressive. Of all the CDT collaborations, the Tradio has been the one I’ve used the most, since the ink dries very quickly and makes an excellent planner pen. Tradio refills available separately.

4. Craft Design Technology Brush Sign Pens. One of the most-requested items is now available! These soft-tip fineliners/markers/brush pens are sold individually in 10 different colors or come in two different assortment packs of 5 or 10 pens.

5. Craft Design Technology Desk Note Notebooks. These landscape-style notebooks are made from bagasse paper, a byproduct of sugarcane processing. Bagasse paper is quite fountain pen friendly, and I’ve found that this particular notebook handles not just fountain pen inks but markers and other writing instruments as well.

6. Kobeha Graphilo Paper. Developed specifically for use with fountain pens, Graphilo has developed a cult following over the years. Available in multiple formats, including A5, Square, and a 188-page A5-Slim (which will work with our Roterfaden TGS_25).

7. Musgrave Heritage Pencil Assortment Pack. These popular pencil assortments have arrived just in time for Christmas, and yes you can reuse the pencil box as a pencil/pen stand or pencil case.

8. Musgrave Highlighter Pencil Set. I can never stock too many highlighter pencils, and these 8-packs contain two of each color in a relatively rare slim barrel design.

9. Musgrave Songwriter Pencils (Including Special Edition Blue Set). The 4B Songwriter pencil sold out nearly immediately when we had it in stock early in the year, and we’ve restocked on both the standard cream version as well as the new special edition Teal Blue set.

10. Musgrave “Tennessee Red” Pencils. The Tennessee Red features the highly aromatic Eastern Red Cedar wood, which used to be a staple of pencil manufacturing until it was abandoned in favor of the more readily available Incense Cedar. A few years back, Musgrave sourced some slats to make the Tennessee Red, and it’s one of the more unique offerings.

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The Craft Design Technology “Desk Note” in Large and Small Size.

New Arrivals: Tennessee-Made Pencils from Musgrave and A Blackwing Restock!

Musgrave Pencils, made just down the road from us in Shelbyville, Tennessee, are one of my all-time favorite stationery products. A family-owned business for more than 100 years, Musgrave makes a variety of pencil styles at a reasonable price point, and we’re happy to offer a fairly large selection from the outset. To get started in the Musgrave world, I often direct people to the “Heritage” sampler set, which contains 12 different pencils from across the Musgrave line, including a couple of “jumbos” and some of their specialty graphite such as news and test-scoring pencils. We also have classics such as the Harvest Professional (a classic yellow No. 2), three different varieties of the Musgrave Bugle, a 4B “Songwriter Pencil”, and the B/No. 1 “Pencil King”. (The latter two pencils are round, and extremely comfortable to use.)

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The latest Volumes release features extra-firm graphite and a burgundy eraser!

Finally, nearly all Blackwing is back in stock, including additional Blackwing 602 pencils, the latest Volume release (“Native American Art” Edition), and one-step long-point sharpeners. We’re going to continue to add pencil products throughout the year, so stay-tuned!

Come visit us in person! Public hours are Thursday and Friday from 1-6pm, Saturday from 10-6pm, and otherwise by appointment. We look forward to seeing you this week!

T.G.S. Summer Giveaway, Round Three: Courtesy of Sunderland, Penwell, and Musgrave!

It’s still all-aboard the giveaway train around here, and this week I’m clearing out some more prototypes and review samples that deserve to find a home in someone’s daily rotation. I have three exceptionally good giveaway items this week:

• T.G.S. x. Sunderland mk1 Prototype Rollerball Pen. While the final version of the T.G.S. signature mk1 features a matte black and red finish, this prototype version features a polished finish. While we decided to go in a different direction for the pen that went to market, this one still looks great is a fully functional Sunderland mk1 for you to use as a daily writer. Read more about the Sunderland mk1 here.

• Penwell Traveler Pen Holder. This portable Penwell features a matte white finish with brass hardware, and comes in a zippered travel pouch.

• Assortment of Musgrave Pencils. The team at Musgrave, my local Tennessee pencil maker, is kind enough to periodically send me items to give away. Our final giveaway prize will be an assortment of Musgrave pencils, along with a high-quality sharpener so that you can put a fine point on your writing!

As per the usual, enter using the Gleam widget below, which also contains the full terms and conditions. In short, the giveaway will run all week until Sunday, June 12, at 11:59pm U.S. Central Time. Once the giveaway closes I will randomly select three winners. While this giveaway is open to participants worldwide, I may not be able to ship to your location due to legal restrictions or prohibitive cost. If cost is an issue, I will reach out to let you know and give you the option of covering a portion of the shipping costs.

This post does NOT contain paid third-party affiliate links. With respect to the giveaway, I don’t personally use any of your information for marketing, etc., but since Gleam is a third-party I’d encourage you to refer to their privacy policy.

A Surprise in the Mail from Musgrave! And a Giveaway!

Nicole, the Marketing Director at Musgrave Pencil, was kind enough to send over a BUNCH of product samples to celebrate back to school season, including a Heritage Collection Variety Pack featuring one dozen assorted pencils from Musgrave’s classic lineup and newer releases, such as the Tennessee Red. Since I kicked off this week with a review of two pens from Chattanooga-based BigiDesign, I thought it would be fun to end the week with a giveaway post featuring some pencils from Musgrave, located literally just down the road from me in Shelbyville, TN. (I really do need to go visit sometime - not sure they give tours, though….)

Enter Below to Win a Dozen Tennessee Reds or a Dozen Harvest 320 Pencils!

I’ve previously written about the Musgrave Tennessee Red, a throwback to the time when pencils were made from American red cedar. I also have a dozen Musgrave Harvest 320 pencils, which is Musgrave’s classic yellow No. 2. You can enter the giveaway and view the terms and conditions via the Gleam widget below, but the short version is that I will pick two winners on Weds morning. First winner gets the Tennessee Reds, second winner gets the Harvest 320s. Many thanks to Musgrave for making this possible!

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My daughter already claimed the sampler pack and the pencil cup. Sorry!

Where to Buy

If you’re interested in grabbing one of these awesome pencil samplers for yourself, head over the Musgrave website, which you may notice has been redesigned since you last visited! The Heritage Collection Variety Pack pictured here is available for $12.75, including the awesome reusable pencil cup that won a Dieline award, and in addition to the Tennessee Reds and the Harvest pencils, Musgrave recently released the Greenbelt, an FSC-certified natural wood pencil made. I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these!

This post does not contain affiliate links, nor am I being compensated by Musgrave Pencil. The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and reader donations. If you would like to support us even further, please consider checking out the T.G.S. Patreon Program, which offers access to online meetups, exclusive discounts and pre-orders, and more.

The Best Truly American Pencils: New Releases from Musgrave Pencil Company

The Musgrave Pencil Company is located in Shelbyville, Tennessee (“Pencil City”), which sits just down the road from my hometown of Franklin. Several years ago I reviewed some bulk pencils I had purchased from Musgrave, and came away impressed with the quality at the price point. Musgrave, however, had not updated their website in years, and the company appeared to rely heavily on advertising and specialty pencils, as well as white labeling (i.e., making pencils for other brands). In 2018, things changed, as Musgrave hired a new marketing team and started development on a new product line. You can hear more about Musgrave’s transformation on Episode 134 of the Erasable Podcast, featuring creative directors Nicole and Tim Delger, the team behind the Musgrave rebranding.

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The Musgrave Harvest 320 “Professional,” shown here atop a Write Notepads Reporter Notebook (now available in an eye-popping red). Write Notepads and Baron Fig remain my preferred paper for pencils due to the texture and slightly tactile feel.

So What’s Behind the “Heritage” Tagline?

Musgrave has been making pencils in Shelbyville since 1916, so they’ve witnessed multiple shifts in the pencil industry during their more than a century in business. These changes included the move in the 1960s-1970s from traditional Tennessee Red Cedar to California Incense Cedar, which today remains the preferred wood for making pencils (though companies have shifted to other sources as even Incense Cedar has become scarcer and more expensive). The new Musgrave website features a comprehensive company history, including a bunch of unique photos from the pre-WWII era.

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Musgrave’s new “Heritage” collection is headlined by the “Tennessee Red,” made from the same Tennessee Red Cedar used in American pencil-making all those years ago. Apparently, Musgrave discovered a source for Tennessee Red Cedar slats, which they used to create these gorgeous, highly aromatic wood-grain pencils that, to me, smell like cedar should. If you’ve ever been inside a cedar closet or stuck your head inside a wooden chest made from red cedar, you’ll know which smell I’m talking about. Musgrave also updated their signature “Harvest” yellow No. 2 pencil to include a “professional” version made from Incense Cedar, and even released a “Single Barrel 106” pencil made from vintage (i.e. 1930s) Red Cedar pencil slats.

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My favorite thing about the Tennessee Reds is the variation in the wood grain. And the Tri-Star logo. As a Middle Tennessee native and (mostly) lifelong resident, I’ll buy anything with the Tri-Star.

The core that Musgrave uses is perfect for my style of writing. While it’s labeled a “No. 2” (at least on the Harvest), to me it writes more like a 2B or a No. 1, my preferred grades of graphite. Both pencils have excellent point retention for graphite this dark, and while one drawback is that Musgrave’s cores can have a tendency to smudge, that’s a trade-off I’m personally happy to make.

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These three Musgrave pencils all write a similarly dark line. Writing sample is on a Write Notepads Dot-Grid Spiral Notebook.

Both the Tennessee Red and the Harvest 320 Professional are “home run” products for Musgrave, and I’m ecstatic to see this iconic American company stake out a piece of today’s expanding market for high-end pencils. My sole wish would be for them to devote additional time to quality control (discussed further below) and to consider softening the hex shape, especially on the Harvest series. I mentioned in my prior review that Musgrave’s signature hexagonal pencil can be a bit uncomfortable to write with for long periods of time - those edges are sharp. I know that Musgrave is capable of smoothing things out a bit because they have made a series of extremely comfortable incense cedar pencils to accompany Write Notepads’ “In the Pines” and “Telegraph” limited edition pocket notebooks. I’d love to see them do this on a standard release, and given how much I love Musgrave’s core such a pencil would easily become my primary writer. (For some reason, probably due to the texture of the wood, the Tennessee Red feels less sharp.)

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Musgrave pencils sharpen very well. The Harvest 320 is shown here with a point carved by a NUK single-stage long-point sharpener, possibly the best I’ve used, that was featured in this quarter’s C.W. Pencils Pencil Box Subscription. I hope they sell these sharpeners soon, because I want to buy a bunch!

A Note on Sharpening and Quality Control

The release of the Tennessee Red Cedar pencil has not been without minor controversy, which I feel I need to address briefly. The Musgrave website states that the supplier of the Red Cedar slats “wasn’t used to prepping slats for pencils,” and if the slats aren’t uniform, it can result in off-center cores. Musgrave’s site suggests that off-center cores are a purely aesthetic issue, but they’re not: an off-center core can affect a pencil’s ability to sharpen (though once you get them sharpened, they’re perfectly usable).

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The pencil on the left had a badly off-center core, but I was still able to get it sharpened to a super-long, concave El Casco point. The Tennessee Red on the right had a centered core and sharpened just fine in the Carl Angel-5.

My entire order of 24 Tennessee Reds only contained 2 “bad” cores, and I was actually able to get both of these pencils to sharpen, though it took running them through my El Casco sharpener as both the Classroom Friendly and the KUM Masterpiece kept giving me an uneven point nearly covered by wood on one side. Personally, I think Musgrave should inspect these pencils before they ship to remove the duds. It was fairly easy for me to look at a handful and quickly spot the off-center cores. To their credit, from what I’ve heard Musgrave is more than willing to work with customers to make things right if you receive an order containing multiple unusable pencils. They have excellent customer service.

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Twenty Musgrave Tennessee Reds. The controversy over “off-center cores” is somewhat overblown - of this fistful of pencils, only one is badly off-center (top center), which isn’t uncommon but when you are selling premium pencils, it’s a legitimate issue for customers.

Visit Musgrave’s New Online Shop

You can purchase the pencils featured in this review directly from Musgrave. As I mentioned above, Musgrave has redesigned their website, including their online store. While Musgrave manufactures a vast catalogue of pencils, both standard and novelty/promotional, the new retail strategy focuses on their “Heritage Collection,” such as the Tennessee Red and the Harvest 320 Professional, both of which you can purchase by the dozen, or in an engraved (and highly aromatic) red cedar box. Overall, these are excellent pencils made by a classic American stationery company, and pencils always present an opportunity to purchase quality stationery at relatively minimal cost. Both Tennessee Reds and Harvest pencils cost a whopping $9 per dozen (compared against $24.95 for a dozen Blackwings). If you’re a fan of darker pencils with an awesome story behind them, grab these now because they have received a lot of attention and I suspect there may be a run on them in the future.

Disclaimer: The products featured in this post were purchased with my own funds for my own use. I was not compensated in any way for this review. This post (and content linked to in this post) contains affiliate links and links to my own retail store.