page_title: Pencil
section_title: Grading and classification
hierarchical_section_title: Pencil / Grading and classification
caption_attribution_description: English: A grading chart ranging from 9B to 9H.
context_page_description: A pencil is an implement for writing or drawing, constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core in a protective casing that prevents the core from being broken and/or marking the user's hand.
  Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface. They are distinct from pens, which dispense liquid or gel ink onto the marked surface.
  Most pencil cores are made of graphite powder mixed with a clay binder. Graphite pencils produce grey or black marks that are easily erased, but otherwise resistant to moisture, most chemicals, ultraviolet radiation and natural aging. Other types of pencil cores, such as those of charcoal, are mainly used for drawing and sketching. Coloured pencils are sometimes used by teachers or editors to correct submitted texts, but are typically regarded as art supplies—especially those with waxy core binders that tend to smear when erasers are applied to them. Grease pencils have a softer, crayon-like waxy core that can leave marks on smooth surfaces such as glass or porcelain.
context_section_description: Graphite pencils are made of a mixture of clay and graphite and their darkness varies from light grey to black: the more clay the harder the pencil. There is a wide range of grades available, mainly for artists who are interested in creating a full range of tones from light grey to black. Engineers prefer harder pencils which allow for a greater control in the shape of the lead.
  Manufacturers distinguish their pencils by grading them, but there is no common standard. Two pencils of the same grade but different manufacturers will not necessarily make a mark of identical tone nor have the same hardness.
  Most manufacturers, and almost all in Europe, designate their pencils with the letters H (commonly interpreted as "hardness") to B (commonly "blackness"), as well as F (usually taken to mean "fineness", although F pencils are no more fine or more easily sharpened than any other grade. Also known as "firm" in Japan). The standard writing pencil is graded HB. This designation was in use at least as early as 1844. It used B for black and H for hard; a pencil's grade was described by a sequence or successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH and HHH for successively harder ones. The Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth pencil manufacturers claim to have first used the HB designations, with H standing for Hardtmuth, B for the company's location of Budějovice, and F for Franz Hardtmuth, who was responsible for technological improvements in pencil manufacture.
  As of 2009, a set of pencils ranging from a very soft, black-marking pencil to a very hard, light-marking pencil usually ranges from softest to hardest as follows:
  Koh-i-noor offers twenty grades from 10H to 8B for its 1500 series. Mitsubishi Pencil offers twenty-two grades from 10H to 10B for its Hi-uni range. Derwent produces twenty grades from 9H to 9B for its graphic pencils. Staedtler produces 24 from 10H to 12B for its Mars Lumograph pencils.
  Numbers as designation were first used by Conté and later by John Thoreau, father of Henry David Thoreau, in the 19th century.
  Although Conté/Thoreau's equivalence table is widely accepted, not all manufacturers follow it; for example, Faber-Castell uses a different equivalence table in its Grip 2001 pencils: 1 = 2B, 2 = B, 2½ = HB, 3 = H, 4 = 2H.
caption: A grading chart ranging from 9B to 9H
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