The great eraser race

I love our readers. The commenters we get from the pencil community are friendly, opinionated, and intelligent. And I'm not saying that just to butter them up -- since I've joined the Pencil Things blog, I've met other people who genuinely care about office supplies. I thought I was a freak. It's nice to know there are others like me out there.

One regular commenter and scribomechanica freak out there, Barrel of a Pencil, dropped me an email the other day. He said he ran across a vinyl eraser at a Dollar Tree in Lakewood, NY. It was sold in a blister pack of 8 for $1. Although it is comically generic, it erasers like a champ. (That's right, I used "eraser" as a verb. Anyone gonna challenge me on that?)

He wrote me this:

I post comments under the nom de pencil Barrel Of A Pencil.  If possible I would like to send you one of the little generic  white vinyl erasers I wrote about in my comment posted to Pencil Thing's ruminations on the timeless question Why The Pencil. (Check out the post here. -AW)  Ideally, I  would like to see you review this little gem either  on its own  merits or in competition with the usual name brand  suspects  (Staedtler, Pentel, Faber-Castell, etc.). I think its a  whiz-bang  of an eraser and a steal at 12 1/2 cents (8 for a  dollar).

Just so everyone knows, I usually prefer my eraser to be on the end of the pencil. It's easier to use, and I think the extra weight the eraser and the ferrule adds to the pencil helps me balance it. However, sometimes I just have to use my ferrule-less Palomino. That's when I want to keep an eraser by my side.

When I received Barrel's donation to The Cause in the mail, I did a little gleeful dance. Once I settled down, I opened it, and there was this somewhat comically generic little eraser wrapped in plastic cellophane. It said on it, "Erasers Extra Soft & Clean" and then, just in case we had no idea what to do with it, "Home • Office • School."

Whew! Now I have some direction...

I opened the cellophane, and was pleased by how soft it really was. It was sort of squishy, a little like those stress balls everyone has but never seems to use.

For the review, I pitted it against a Staedtler Mars plastic eraser (95 cents, Product Page), and just to shake things up a bit, an old purple Dixon rubber eraser I found at the bottom of my desk drawer (3 for $1.00 almost anywhere) just for contrast.

Please keep in mind that this is not a test of different eraser types — vinyl vs. rubber vs. mouldable, etc. That's for another review. For the purposes of this post, I tried to keep my subject narrowed to these particular erasers.

Both the Brand X and  the Staedtler Mars came in a cardboard sleeve, which doesn't really serve any purpose I can gather except to keep the rest of the unit from getting dirty. It's kind of like the little sleeve they put on ice cream cones. Eventually, you have to take it off when you start to use it up. In the meantime, they do make the erasers look nicer, don't they?

My test was conducted as follows (see picture below): I wrote on a piece of notebook paper in heavy HB graphite marking, "This is a test.". Then I erased it with each eraser, drawing the unit over the words exactly five times. I tried to take care to use the same amount of pressure for each. Take a look (and please excuse my crappy lettering and my equally crappy camera):

For 13 cents, I have to tell you and Barrel of a Pencil that the Brand X eraser worked like a charm. He definitely got his money worth. I usually gravitate toward plastic erasers because, unlike rubber erasers which get debris all over the page, plastic/vinyl erasers (which are both the same, aren't they?) just leave one little scrap, or roll, which can be picked off and thrown away. It was a smooth glide across the paper, and perhaps my only objection is that it is too soft. It did leave a bit of a mark left over, but after another couple swipes across the words (done after I took the picture), they were completely gone.

If price is no object, though the Staedtler 95-cent eraser was the best. Check out the fact that there is almost no mark left over. It was just as smooth as the Brand X, and it was firmer. I wasn't afraid the eraser would crumble off onto the paper.

The Dixon, as I expected, wasn't great. I can still almost read "This is a test" left over on the page. To be fair, much of this is due to the fact that the eraser is probably a couple years old, and dirty. I only put it in the test to make a comparison to most of the erasers out there.

To be fair to the Brand X pencil, the Mars is a good one-and-a-half times longer. Even if I were able to buy it smaller,  the eraser-to-price ratio would make it about 63 cents, nearly five times the price of the Brand X.

In a nutshell: If money is no problem, and/or there are no Dollar Trees in your area, get a Staedtler or another quality name-brand. However, pound for pound, Barrel of a Pencil's little find is worth it. You're sacrificing a bit of quality, but it erasers very cleanly, and you get all the benefits of a vinyl eraser -- no debris!

A note to our readers: Anyone recognize that Brand X eraser? Do you have any manufacturer contact info?

Thanks, Barrel of a Pencil! Anyone have any finds they want to pit against the name brands? Let me know!

-Andy Welfle

Comments

[Barrel Of A Pencil]

Well, that seals it! I have never gotten so much satisfaction from anything I have ever purchased for so little. Never, ever. Which just goes to show that the best things in life are (nearly) free. The Little Eraser That Could made me smile. Your review of the Little Eraser That Could made me smile and laugh in recognition. Your critique struck just the right tone of high jollity, the correct balance between mirth and seriousness, that the subject in particular and our shared obsessions here at Pencil Things demands. Your gift Andy is your light touch. We can take things seriously without taking ourselves (too:>))) seriously. Thus your little felicities like "comically generic", "if price is no object", and "this is a test". How droll! I wish I could be the first to tell you that the OED offers some support for your coinage, but I like "erasered" just the same.

No quarrels over eggshells here, but aren't we nuts, or at least a wee bit pixilated? Surely we long for MLeddy's Dowdy World?

Now, about that comically generic Blackwing 602...