When I began this blog seven years ago I went through my bookshelf and wrote about the various pen books I had accumulated. There comes a point when you don’t need any more general pen books but as the occasional more specialist publication has come along, I have included reviews of them.

Pencils, as I often comment, are the poor relations of the writing instrument world. Thankfully that is not reflected in the literature and Collecting Pencils by Sue Courtier, Jane Marshall and Jim Marshall is a splendid introduction to this aspect of our hobby.

Though it’s a slender booklet of 67 pages it gives comprehensive coverage of the types of pencils you might come across and the copious illustrations are very clear and colourful. Everything from cedar pencils to the highly collectable nineteenth and early twentieth century novelty pencils by Mordan, Edward Todd and Hicks are covered.

Given the large number of different types of mechanical pencil the section on repair can only be an introduction but there are helpful diagrams throughout the work.

This booklet is no longer in print but can be found at various places on the Internet. This is the second edition and it’s on sale in Waterstones at £12 and the Pendragons have it at £14.99. I would regard it as an essential item for the bookshelf of anyone serious about writing instruments.