I'll give you $20 for that Blackwing

**Life after death for the legendary No. 2 pencil. [via Boston Globe]

Writers like to think that it is the man or woman sitting upstream from the pencil who may become immortal. But here is the story of a pencil that has achieved immortality all by itself.

We are talking about the legendary Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602, which went out of production in 1998. Up in Writers' Valhalla, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, and Archibald MacLeish are shedding a silent tear. Down here on Earth, Stephen Sondheim, Andre Gregory, and Roger Rosenblatt are scrounging to locate leftover 602s. The pencils once cost 50 cents; now they are selling for as much as $20 apiece on the Internet.

Full article: Fans of pencils pocket No. 2, opt for their No. 1: Blackwing 602