Unhappy with the range of generally rubbish mechanical pencils available from the likes of Officeworks (where the Mars Micro is top-of-the-line), I did a bit of googling around and discovered some interesting resources, which I will share with you here:

• Dave’s Mechanical Pencils – a New Zealand guy who reviews many mechanical pencil related items.
• Mechanical Pencil Junkies – Flickr group. Pictures of mechanical pencils.
• Pencils 11 – a really serious collector of mechanical pencils.
• Pencil Box – another collector’s blog.
• Cult Pens – online retailer of pens and pencils.

I ordered three pencils off Cult Pens. I figured what the heck, and ordering 3 is ok, given I was paying £10 for shipping from the UK and we are talking around £6 for a pretty fancy pencil. Here’s what I ordered, from least fancy to most fancy:

Faber-Castell 2011 Grip in Matt Blue 0.7mm (I prefer 0.5mm but there’s no choice about the size of lead in this one).

Faber-Castell TK Fine Vario L 0.5mm.

Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.5mm.

But the pencil I decided I really lust after is the OHTO Super Promecha Pencil PM1500P…

It’s nearly £20. Ahh well, next time.