This pencil have gone by a few names over the years. For a long time the official name was just the “Blackwing”. Usually called the MMX by pencil geeks. Recently it was renamed to the “Matte”, Fucking dumb name but it works.

This is the original Palomino Blackwing and the one with the softest core.

It is a beautiful black pencil with gold text and ferrule.

For how I use pencils this isn’t a great one. It is too soft to be useful for any kind of writing. But I think it is fun to use a few of them every now and then.

But it feels great to write with.

At work I usually just write down notes either while working or in meetings. Never filling multiple pages at once. In that pace I don’t mind switching or sharpening pencils a lot. But this one is too much.

And for writing long form, I could sharpen a full 12 pack of these bad boys at both ends and end up using all 12 of them before I had written a single blog post.

With my preferences I can probably get through half of a A5 page before it is too dull for me.