Pierre Noire B Sketching Pencil

I’m very happy with this pencil. It sharpened perfectly on the first try without breaking, even with a long point. The core feels strong and well-made. The pencil lays down rich, dark marks and works great for sketching and shading. Excellent quality and definitely worth the price. I’ll be buying more.

I love these pencils. The black the lay on the paper is amazing. Better than any 8b or 9b pencils I have used. I hate that I waited so long to try them out. I have seen many artist rave about them.

As an award winning illustrator quality materials make the process more dynamic. These are great! I have black and white - and a big set of professional color pencils and charcoals I use when I’m not painting - which I do most of the time. These are really good although I wish they were a bit softer and more opaque - but I just have to work a little harder. Enjoy! You can’t go wrong!

I really wanted to like the Conte Pierre Noire 3B pencil, but it’s been nearly impossible to sharpen. I've tried everything from a sharp knife to several types of pencil sharpeners and no matter what I do, the tip keeps breaking or crumbling. Even worse, the wood casing cracked during one attempt, making it unusable. Additionally, when the pencils arrived, every single tip was already broken. Despite its black tone, it’s not worth the frustration. There are other black pencils out there that are just as dark and far more durable.

High quality, sturdy and a great piece to have in my set. Priced decently and shipped out in a timely manner.

As a novice sketcher I had recently heard about Conte brand pencils, specifically the Noire 3B and decided to give them a try. I picked up two through Amazon, sold by Color Arts and Crafts for about $5.50 each. They were shipped each in separate plastic bags, inside an Amazon paper envelope. One of the pencils had the tip broken so it needed to be sharpened and the other still had the factory tip. None of the sharpeners I have were compatible with the Conte pencils (they are slightly larger than any of my other pencils). I was familiar with razor blade sharpening so that is the method I used which brings me to the point of this review. This pencil is not for beginner sketchers or those without the time and patience to maintain the tips. After several attempts that ended up with the tip breaking off and a total of about 40 minutes I was able to put a usable point on the pencil using a razor blade and sandpaper but I cut off one third of the pencil before its first use.

With 50 years experience I can say with some authority that Conte a Paris's Pierre Noire is the blackest black of any pastel pencil, period. The fact that Jackson's had them shipped from Norway is impressive.

This is a great pencils. Disclaimer: You cannot put it on a pencil sharpen in ANY way to sharpen it. You MUST use a blade and sand paper. You will shred this (expensive) pencil into wood chips of you try to use anything other than a bland and sand paper.

Comprei o lápis para meu filho, ele é desenhista e ficou impressionado com a qualidade e definição desse lápis, muito bom.

Compre 5 y 3 de ellos están quebrados de la punta!👎🏼

Ottima matita, arrivata puntualmente.

Mi serviva una matita carboncino che abbia un colore nero molto intenso per sostituire una di un'altra marca che non riesco a trovare facilmente, questa va benissimo. Nero davvero intenso, perfetto da usare con il carboncino. A differenza dell'altra che era più tipo gesso, questa è più oleosa, scivola benissimo sul foglio, ha una mina molto morbida ed è anche più grande, non entra dentro un temperino normale (servirebbe quello più grande), comunque lo sconsiglio... meglio usare un taglierino per evitare di rompere la mina in continuazione. È arrivata con la punta rotta, ma non è stato un problema. La consiglio assolutamente.

Excellent pencil for providing the blackest blacks. Be aware it will smudge easily, but this is also useful when drawing with it. Nicer, smoother texture than charcoal pencils I have used.