Blackwing Price Increase

Thursday, 28 March 2024

Blackwing has recently announced the Volume 710 for Jerry Garcia. It features soft graphite and a roll-on print of some of his artwork. It’s been a while since we had a soft graphite release, so it was about time. Plus they seem to be using the soft graphite for artists and musicians, a pattern that I think makes sense. They look pretty slick, but I haven’t gotten mine yet so I’ll review them in another post.

At the same time, it became apparent that Blackwing has raised the prices on both volumes pencils and the core pencils. They didn’t announce this, but it is live on their website and on other vendors’ like JetPens. Volumes are now $32 a box, and core pencils are now $30 a box. That’s a 7% increase for special editions, and an 11% increase on the Natural, 602, etc. The Eras pencils are still showing up at $30, at least for now.

People on Reddit seem mad about this, but then again r/pencils can be fairly negative and sometimes downright toxic about Blackwing pencils, and in particular their price. Blackwing pencils are definitely not the best value, in terms of “bang for your buck” — but that’s not what they’re aiming for. Personally, I think the Camel ferrule-less or the Kitaboshi natural wood pencils are the best value out there. But Blackwing pencils are good quality, interesting, fun, and nice to write with. So it’s like saying that Aston-Martin sucks, because the Honda Civic is way cheaper, while still being a car that can get you to work. That’s not why people drive luxury performance cars. At least, I assume... I drive a Civic. The nice thing is, everyone gets to decide if they just want a tool to get the job done, or if they are in it for something more; Blackwing caters to the latter.

Philosophy aside, let’s look at the recent history of price increases. My first box of Blackwings was from 2019, and up through about October 2021, the core pencils were $25 a box and special editions were $28. Starting around November 2021, the core pencils were $27 and special editions were $30. Of course, now the core pencils are $30 and special editions are $32. These increases were offset slightly by additional benefits that were given to volumes subscribers. Starting around the beginning of 2023, subscribers started getting 10% off all orders on the Blackwing site. Sometime later in the spring of that year, they added a reward program that basically gives you $1 off for every $20 spent.

Just for the sake of comparison, let’s look at two other American companies, because Blackwing isn’t the only one who has raised prices since 2019. Musgrave and General have both raised prices multiple times over the last couple years. I’m not trying to say who is right or wrong, better or worse — just keep in mind, both of these companies are definitely more on the utilitarian or “Honda Civic” end of the pencil spectrum.

Here are the Musgrave prices:

Here are the General prices (some rounded to the nearest $0.25):

Blackwing did raise prices for the second time in five years, but they’re not the only ones doing so. The percentage increase for Blackwing pencils has been lower than for many other pencils from American companies; of course, they’re way more expensive to begin with, so maybe that doesn’t mean much. But Blackwing isn’t trying to be the best value pencil out there, so they don’t really care about being cheaper than everyone else. Believe me, I wish that Blackwing had not raised prices. But for the kind of person who really likes what they’re selling, I don’t think a 7% increase is going to make them suddenly stop buying them. Obviously, Blackwing thinks the same way.

Lastly, I am not an industry insider, and I don’t know the economics of all this. When you see Musgrave and General raising prices at the same time, I kinda assume that there are factors at play which affect everyone.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.