This Faber Castell Grip 2001 pencil is part of a range of products that Faber Castell has put on the market under the Grip name. The characteristic of the pencil are the doted patches of rubber that offer comport and "grip" to the user. The pencil is on the higher side of pricing, being a step up from the competition's classical pencils. It has a triangular shape that is great for comfort, it has a cool metal gray color and dotted black grip patches as implied by the name. At the top it has a black eraser which gives the entire pencil a very slick and modern look, at least in the one I have, because the pencil can be found without an eraser.
It has a unique look and feel that I enjoy. The pencil is made in Germany and has a very premium feel when you pick it up. I've got the HB version, which corresponds to the US 2 1/2. The pencil comes sharpened and has a very nice pointy tip. It has a total length from tip to eraser of 18.5.
The cost of a pencil without the eraser is about 0.7 - 0.8 Eur while the eraser version comes just above the 1.1 Eur mark (0.76 - 1.2 USD).
The Faber Castell website, states that they produce over 2 billion pencils per year, and are taking great care of the woods used to produce these pencils and the labor workforce involved in their operations, and 82% of the energy used is from renewable sources. So let's take into account information like this when buying a pencil.
How does the Faber Castell Grip 2001 performs?
In the end the most important is how the pencil writes, how does it feel when the lead hits the paper.
The pencil writes well, it has a bit of a harder composition that you can feel while writing with it. It offers a bit of feedback, it is not as smooth as a mechanical pencil lead, for example. Because it is a harder, it saves you from resharpening it very often, in retaining the tip quite well. At the same time, it is not producing the darkest line possible. Compared with a generic pencil it did better, and compared with the mechanical pencil leads from Rotring it produced a similar line.
In the smudge test it performed very well, it was almost smudge free which is great.
The pencil erases just fine, and with a single pass over the writing, the result was satisfactory. Usually the attached eraser is not on par with standard erasers, and this is no exception. The quality makes it ok for when you are in a pickle, but a block eraser will offer much nicer results.
In the end the pencil performed well, it will offer better results compared with a generic brand, but it will not
