There are many factors that affect the longevity of a pencil. The graphite formulation, the pressure you write with, the paper you write on, and how frequently the pencil is sharpened, all contribute to how much a pencil writes before it runs out. You may have heard that the average pencil draws a line about 35 miles long, or writes about 45,000 words. But, as far as we can tell, these claims have never been tested in any scientific way. 

In June of 2019, we released our summer limited edition pencil, Volume 10. It’s a tribute to Nellie Bly and investigative journalists like her who go through painstaking lengths to bring citizens objective, unbiased journalism. You can read about it here.

In the spirit of Nellie Bly’s rigorous research, a member of the Blackwing community, Robin Lepine, conducted an experiment testing the longevity of a pencil. Robin rewrote Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House using the Volume 10 pencil, which is equipped with our extra-firm graphite formulation. Robin shared his observations with us, and we are sharing it with you.

Ten Days in a Madhouse is one of the earliest and most iconic examples of unbiased investigative journalism, and it served as the numerical inspiration for Volume 10. It has 17 Chapters (plus an intro), 29,167 words and 152,858 characters in total. If the aforementioned theory is accurate, Robin would be able to complete the task with one pencil, with enough left to write another 15,982 words. The following is a breakdown of Robin Lepine’s findings:

Stats breakdown

Pencil: Blackwing Volume 10 pencil (extra-firm graphite formulation)

Sharpener: Blackwing Long Point Sharpener

Paper: Blackwing Slate notebook. The Blackwing Slate Notebook is 5 X 8.5 inches consisting of 160 pages of 100GSM ivory paper. This project used 156 pages.

Total stats — Nellie Bly’s 10 days in a Madhouse

Chapters: Intro + 17 chapters

Total word count: 29,167

Total character count: 152,858

Pencil 1

Total Chapters: Intro + 6.5 chapters

Total words: 12,603

Total characters: 66,482

Total sharpening: 45

Total character erased: 14

Pencil 2

Total chapters: 10.5 chapters

Total words: 16,564

Total characters: 86,376

Total sharpening: 27

Total characters erased: 8

This experiment did not prove true the theory that an average pencil writes about 45,000 words. However, it’s important to keep in mind that there are many aspects could affect the result. We would like to thank Robin for sharing this insight with us, and express our admiration for his scientific spirit. All data belongs to Robin Lepine.

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