Review: California Republic Golden Bear Blue

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I've tried and tried to give the Golden Bear a chance. It's made by California Republic, so I know that it comes from good people. But try as I might, I cannot give it a good review.

First, I'd like to point out its best feature, and to many people, that counts for a lot: it's a darn good looking pencil. Take a look:

That blue is just gorgeous, isn't it? Combined with the bright orange eraser and the brass ferrule with a blue metallic stripe in the middle, it looks like a superhero.

Sigh. Unfortunately, it doesn't act like one. I started out with just one, and then I asked Don to send me another one to make sure it wasn't a fluke. The second one wasn't much better. The wood won't sharpen for anything. I tried several small KUM sharpeners, a generic hand-held sharpener that came with a set of Ticonderogas, a wall-mounted Boston-like sharpener, and even one of those plug-in electric sharpeners. Every time, the wood catches, splinters, and weakens its hold on the lead point.

I know California Republic doesn't have this problem with their other products. The Prospector and the Palomino, two of my favorite pencils of all time, sharpen smoothly, and never splinters. I tried taking pictures of the Golden Bear's point side by side with the Palomino's point, but I can't get a picture in focus. Trust me; they look the same.

I pressed my fingernail against the exposed wood on the point, and realized that the Golden Bear's wood is harder. I can easily make an indentation into the Palomino's wood, while it takes a harder push to indent the Golden Bear's.

So, does that make the wood harder and more brittle? I think so.

Conversely, with as hard as the wood was, the lead was soft. Too soft. I had a hard time keeping a point, even when I wrote softly. The trade-off wasn't even that great -- I didn't have a darker line when comparing it to a Palomino with a bit firmer lead. (Keep in mind that these pencils are all HB -- I'm sure that varies significantly if I switch to a harder lead.)

I can give it props for it's orange eraser, though. Sometimes when erasers are bright colors, they tend to more rubbery and less... eraser-y. This one, however, erases cleanly and without an excess of residue left on the page.

On one hand, I bemoan my opinion of the Golden Bear. It is made by a fine pencil company, after all, and it seems like they would know what they are doing. On the other hand, I feel like I put it through a fair trial (as fair as any other pencil I've reviewed). So maybe it deserves its rating.

A superhero it is not. Maybe a super model -- it is very attractive without too much else going for it.

Overall rating: 1.5 out of 5 points

-Andy Welfle

Comments

[PackDude]

I, like Adair, have also had good experiences with the Orange Golden Bear pencils so far. I have not tried the blue ones.

I wasn't going to get any Prospectors, but it sounds like they may be worth trying out.

Thanks for the review...

[adair]

Thanks for the review. My experience has been different (at least with the orange-colored Golden Bears). I find that, for general writing, they are better suited than the Palominos. For me, they dulled far less quickly than the Palominos, which despite their delicious smooth, dark line require constant sharpening. Could the blue coated Golden Bears be inferior than the orange? Made of worse wood? So far, actually, I have found all of the California Republic lines, including the "cheap" Prospector, to be of much higher quality than the average pencils available today.