Ralph Nader Has a Pencil Eraser Problem. We Investigated.

Nader’s assistant sent me three of the pencils off his desk. One was a Dixon Ticonderoga, Wirecutter’s budget pick in our guide to the best pencils — a pencil that has been chewed on by generations of schoolchildren since 1913. The other two were generic yellow pencils.

As I expected, all three had a standard-issue tip eraser that looked like it was made of synthetic rubber. The use of a plastic eraser on a pencil tip is so uncommon that I am 99.9% sure that everything in the mix of pencils in the photo of his office above has a synthetic-rubber tip eraser as well.

A square pencil shading with eraser marks indenting it into a U-shape with the pencil name, Dixon Ticonderoga, over it and the pencil below it. — Nader uses the Dixon Ticonderoga and some of its yellow-barreled dupes, all of which come with a synthetic-rubber eraser that will dry out and go hard over time. Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter

Though plastic erasers stay flexible longer and are generally better for clean erasing, pencil companies tend not to use them on their tip erasers.

Caroline Weaver, author of The Pencil Perfect: The Untold Story of a Cultural Icon, mused that the use of synthetic rubber might be a cost-saving measure.

But Alex Poirier, vice president of the Blackwing pencil company, told me it’s about design. This is particularly important for the Blackwing 602, a Wirecutter upgrade pick, because it has a narrow, rectangular, replaceable eraser that can erase small details better than a round eraser.

A collage of three photos (left to right): a Blackwing 602 with its eraser intact, a Blackwing 602 with its eraser separated above the pencil, and a Blackwing 602 with its eraser separated above the pencil and dissambled. — We love the smooth flow of the graphite core and the luxurious incense-cedar barrel of the Blackwing 602, a Wirecutter upgrade-pick pencil. The replaceable eraser is a novelty, but the eraser itself is too soft and shreds quickly, leaving behind streaks and smudges. Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter

All of Blackwing’s tip erasers are made of synthetic rubber, specifically, TPR (thermoplastic rubber), Poirier told me in an email. “The softer the eraser, the better it erases (in general),” he said. “But softer erasers also tend to fall apart in a ferrule. Because of that, we offer a softer PVC eraser in our large format handheld eraser.”

In that light (literally), Nader’s cup full of pencils is itself the problem. Heat and UV rays hasten the degradation of his synthetic erasers, turning them hard and unusable.

“Heat will accelerate the evaporation process, as well as the chemicals that are going to keep it pliable,” said Chris Court, vice president of sales for the US and Canada for German-manufactured Staedtler erasers, during a video interview.

Prior to working for Staedtler, Court told me, he would leave stationery supplies on a sunny windowsill next to his desk. “Well, that sun and heat is going to degrade that eraser much quicker than if I was to keep it in the pencil case or out of that direct heat and direct sun,” he said.

To verify this, I performed a longevity test for more than two months by placing multiple pencils and erasers in a window that gets a ton of direct sunlight. The synthetic-rubber erasers became hard after just a few weeks and grew more brittle as time went on.

The erasers that I kept out on my desktop in indirect sunlight fared better, becoming slightly firm but remaining usable for the whole testing period. And the ones that remained boxed stayed like new, still soft and pliable.

As Caroline Weaver told me, if you really want the eraser on your pencil to last, use one pencil at a time, keep it out of the heat and the sun, and store the rest of your pencils in a box in your desk drawer.

Five rows, each containing a short pencil and to its right, the name and a short description of the pencil. — Pencil expert Caroline Weaver uses a single pencil down to the nub before moving on to the next, and she has never had an issue with the eraser drying up. Dana Davis/NYT Wirecutter; source photos by Caroline Weaver

Inspired by Weaver, I spent over a month trying the one-pencil-at-a-time approach myself, carrying around a Spider-Man pencil case to protect the sharpened point of my pencil. Sticking to just one is challenging but not impossible, and I really enjoy having my writing implements at the ready for when I need to quickly fill out a form or solve crimes.

But if that’s impractical for your life, and if, like Nader, you just really want your erasers to stay supple, surely there’s a pencil that has an eraser that is longer-lasting than the others. I had to dig deeper.

It was time to bring in the children.

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