At Tombow, we’re passionate about offering the finest and most innovative executive pens, office, arts and crafts products on the market today. The Tombow MONO professional drawing pencil is the ultimate instrument for drawing and drafting. It features superior extra-refined, high-density graphite, high point strength, and is break-resistant. With the MONO drawing pencil you will get smear proof lines for crisp, clean drawing combined with slow wear for smooth, dense writing. Fourteen different degrees of hardness are available so there is MONO pencil for every drawing need. We know your projects are important to you. That’s why Tombow art products are designed to last a lifetime.
I**D
Made in Vietnam but still good quality. A bit pricey
Several reviewers have complained that these pencils are not made in Japan any longer but instead in Vietnam. Personally, I've never tried the Japanese version but was looking for an alternative to Staedtler 2B Lumographs which are my favourites to sketch with as a professional illustrator, but which are also among the priciest pencils you can buy. As such, regardless of their Vietnamese birthplace, I find these Tombow Mono pencils very good with no evident flaw in their build or lead quality. The latter is as soft as and possibly even slightly darker than the Lumographs's, gliding on paper easily without any of the scratchy feel or brittleness of low-quality graphite leads. The wood casing seems equally good and sharpening the pencils multiple times with a Kum automatic sharpener produced a nice long fine point each time with no breakage or cracking. The varnish covering the pencil is not slippery and drawing for hours with the Tombow was comfortable and easy. As a bonus, these pencils look sublime: the glossy black casing with white and gold accents feels classy and upscale, and look like they belong among a professional artist's tools.One downside is that they are not actually that significantly cheaper than Lumographs depending on where you buy them from but nevertheless they are perfect alternatives to the latter in quality and, subjectively, they even look better.
P**7
Excellent product and inexpensive
Darker lead and smoother writing than Staedtler or Palomino pencils. Also far less expensive than Palominos. There is no fixed standard for pencil lead hardness or softness, so it can be a hit or miss proposition finding a dark soft lead. Generally, pencils produced in Japan write smoother and darker than those produced in UK, US, or Germany.
Q**N
Fall in love with a pencil?
Not an artist. Use fountain pens to fineliners. Bought these because I saw them on “Tokyo Vice”. Not disappointed. On the contrary, these are brilliantly good pencils. A literal delight to use and sharpen and use. I fell in love with these pencils. Well done.
T**E
Strong
I bought a box of the B pencils for marking my wood work. I haven't had a lead break on me and they're a snap to sharpen relative to a carpenter pencil.
A**I
Better than I thought
I am surprised to see this pencil outperform Staedtler pencils that i bought, both pencils are HB2.
Trustpilot
1 month ago
1 day ago