Jot #2
Low-budget dollar store pencil
Let’s start off small.
This is the Jot #2 pencil, sold by Dollar Tree:
The Jot pencil is made in China and sells for $1.25 for a box of 16, approximately $0.08 per pencil. For this price you don’t expect much, and you don’t really get much. But it does write, and has a few notable virtues.
Physical description. When sharpened, the Jot is 7-3/8” in length. The wood is not cedar, but some yellowish wood that is difficult to sharpen without manual pressure. The barrel width varies a bit, ranging from 6.9mm to 7.0mm in width. In real terms a tenth of a mm doesn’t matter much. The lead is smaller in diameter than most pencils I’ve seen, but it appears well-centered, and the point is even. The barrel is straight. The enamel finish does not fully hide the irregularities of the wood underneath, but it is an attractive shiny standard yellow. The ferrule is dark fake brass color, and is well secured to the barrel; however, the eraser is too small for the ferrule and is slightly loose.
Performance characteristics. The barrel has slightly rounded hex corners and is comfortable to hold and use. The lead is fairly hard and scratchy to use; it resists motion across the paper and is hard to draw smooth curves with, and the line is light and gray. But it is strong and sharpens well. It also wears well; after two small drawings and writing a test page in the notebook, the point looked almost freshly sharpened. The eraser is loose, as noted, but it works pretty well, leaving no smudges. This might be more because of the light lines than because of any native merit of the eraser, though.
Photos.
Summary. There’s not a lot to recommend this pencil except its price. It’s cheap and it makes marks on paper, and that’s about it. It’s not especially attractive or well-finished. It will probably last a long time due to the hard lead and tough wood, and its eraser works well, but it’s tiring to write with and frustrating to draw with because of its resistance and rough feel. I also wouldn’t recommend it for test taking, because of the light line. Basically I’d put these in uses where you don’t care much about what happens to them.