Graphite-grey

Back in August 2010, in a post about California Cedar’s revival of the Blackwing pencil, I wrote:

The old Blackwing has been described as charcoal-grey or smoke-grey, but I prefer to think of it as graphite-grey: the Blackwing has the shiny grey look of pencil lead itself.

Graphite-grey: I was (and am) very happy about hitting upon that phrasal adjective, which, as far as I could tell, had never been applied to the Blackwing pencil.

And now California Cedar has announced plans to produce a pencil that more closely resembles the original Blackwing. Here’s the description: “a replica styling of the original Blackwing graphite grey finish.” I’d prefer seeing the hyphen in graphite-grey. But hey, you’re welcome!

I’ll admit to a decided lack of interest in this replica. It’s not the real thing — and ain’t nothing like the real thing, as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell taught us. And the “pre-production” fiasco and subsequent subterfuge accompanying the Blackwing revival last year left me feeling pretty sour about throwing any money Cal Cedar’s way. But I’m sure the new Blackwing will find its way to happy writers.

A related post
The new Blackwing pencil