What is it with these cheap crappy pencils they are making these days. I use pencils a lot and these days I end up buying a pack of ten pencils and I end up throwing half of them away. Half the time you can't even sharpen them. Thy sharpen unevenly and the wood covers the lead, the leads keep shattering inside the sharpener, the wood splinters in the sharpener, or I end up grinding down almost the entire pencil before I can manage to get a point. Not to mention the wood is grainy and crappy and they jam the sharpener. I even got one pencil that I kept sharpening and couldn't get a point on it and eventually realized that there was NO LEAD!! in the pencil !! Huh ? One time out of a pack of ten pencils I got only 2 that were usable. The rest were garbage.

Even some brands of pencils that were once very good are now garbage. Apparently they are all made in China these days and they are making them like total crap using substandard wood, brittle leads, etc.

A friend of mine who is a public school teacher say's she's noticed the same thing. Out of a pack of pencils she ends up throwing away half the pack. Kids use them for tests and the leads break at the slightest pressure and when she tries to sharpen them they won't sharpen. More time ends up wasted trying to get a working pencil than taking the exam. She was so discusted one time she broke the pencil, threw it out the window and gave the kid her own mechanical pencil to use for the rest.

What happened to good ol' quality cedar pencils made in the USA ? From now on I'll just have to order quality Ticonderoga pencils online. Must they make even the simplest things like garbage these days ?