David Reese, or Artisanal Pencil Sharpening in New York, New York, will send you a brand new, hand-sharpened pencil for $12. Inside the box you’ll also find the shavings, bagged and tagged for posterity, along with a “signed and dated certificate authenticating that it is now a dangerous object.”
Dumb? Expensive? Elitist? Maybe, but the one thing it isn’t is a joke. David protests this point perhaps a little too much on the APS site, but if anyone knows a joke, it’s him: Reese used to be a political cartoonist.
You can send your own blunt and chewed-off stick to be freshened up, but if you’re going to spend $15, why not get a new pencil? David prefers a #2 pencil, and will whittle it to a fine-point with either a box cutter or – more recently – a fancy German-made “single-blade hand-sharpener.”
Could you do this yourself? Sure. And you probably should hand-sharpen your pencils with a knife, the way a real artist would. A mechanical sharpener may give a nice conical point, but the thin tip will break in seconds. Better to get a nice thick lead held in a chunky, hand-carved piece of wood: it’ll last a lot longer.
David’s pencils are probably best given as gifts, and if you’re feeling really flush, you can opt for the $50 package which includes the 12½ x 18-inch “Man Vs. Machine” print seen above. Awesome.
Hand Sharpened Pencils [Artisanal Pencil Sharpening via the Guardian]
See Also:
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