Hello pencil pals! I am back from about a month long hiatus. Life– mainly school, work, and moving to a new place got in the way of my ability to post regular updates. I apologize for not keeping the blog updated, but going forward I should be back on track. After all, I have quite the backlog of pencils and projects to post about! OK. Now onto this week’s pencil, the Viking 029 Skoleblyanten (Skoleblyanten translates to school pencil in Danish). Viking is a pencil company based out of Denmark and has a 100 year history of making pencils ever since a Danish matchstick company started making pencils. For a deeper write-up on the history of Viking, head to Bleistift where you will find some great reviews and details about the brand.
Appearance wise, the Viking 029 is more than just an ordinary yellow school pencil. From the classic yellow lacquer of a school pencil, to the black stamping of a Viking ship on the hexagonal barrel, and the ferruleless dipped end, the Viking 029 is quite nice to look at. The Viking 029 not only excels in form, but in function too. While the pencil is classified as an HB grade, I felt as though it wrote a bit softer and darker than HB grade pencils I am used to. The graphite is nice a smooth on paper and erases cleanly and easily. The weight of the Viking 029 is nice. I usually don’t like the lightweight feel to ferruleless pencils, but the Viking 029 has just enough heft to it to feel comfortable.
I have spent the past few weeks writing with this pencil and I can honestly say that while it writes a little bit darker than a standard HB, its point retention is great. Breakage was non-existent and no grittiness was felt while writing at any point. The graphite had almost a soft waxy feel to it, but it didn’t crumble like most waxy feeling graphite pencils do. I can easily say that this pencil will make it into my school year rotation in the Fall. The Viking 029 can be found at CW Pencil Enterprise for $1.25 a pencil and it is well worth throwing a few in your cart next time you shop. For more information on Viking’s other products check out their beautiful page.
the weekly pencil. 