Koh-I-Noor Professional Graphite Pencils | 1900 Toison D'or
Koh-I-Noor Professional Graphite Pencils | 1900 Toison D'or
Over the few years that I have been reviewing art products; and loving it, I have reviewed quite a few Koh-I-Noor products and have yet to test, demonstrate and review a product from the Koh-I-Noor house that I didn’t like.
Koh-I-Noor are originally a Czech company with a very long history of producing art supplies, in particular school supplies, you can find out all this information on Koh-I-Noor’s wonderful new website if you are a bit of a nerd like me and love learning about the companies backgrounds.
In this particular review I will be showing you and talking about the Koh-I-Noor Professional Graphite range, the Toison D’or. Koh-I-Noor have quite a few different graphite pencils, so it is worth noting that this range of graphite pencil is not their only one.
Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Characteristics
I know the look of an art product is not thee most important factor, it is the quality of the product that is important, that being said, it is nice and there is nothing wrong with liking the aesthetics of the tools you use. I personally think that the overall appearance of the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Graphite Pencil is just gorgeous.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, however, this pencil looks professional and I know that Koh-I-Noor refer to the Toison D’or as their professional line, title aside, it just looks like a professional implement of perfection.
The Jet Black matt finish of this hefty 8mm barrel screams sophistication, a drawing companion that would look good in any art studio, from the crazy explosive colourful, paint splattered studio to the more organised and less chaotic studio. Despite the chunky 8mm hexagonal barrel, the core is quite a delicate 3.8mm.
Along the barrel in gold leaf print is the company’s name “Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth” followed by the name of pencil range “Toison D’or” and finally the number “1910”. This is not a date, anything in the 1900 range of Koh-I-Noor is Graphite, this number is more for the company’s reference or when ordering replacements
Finally, on the very end of each pencil is the graphite grade, however on the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or, the graphite grade has been printed on every edge of the hexagonal body, making graphite grade identification really easy to spot visually. The actual grade is also printed in gold leaf on a cream colored background. I think it is this cream colored flash on the end of the barrel, breaking up the jet black body is what gives the pencil such a professional appearance. I personally think if Koh-I-Noor had of used the obvious color of white, this would not have given the same feel to this range.
Ordinarily, print on the side of pencils, in any metallic format can present all manner of issues visually speaking, however, I think in the case of the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or, the Black matt finish help distinguish the print. As most of the issues with metallic print are light based, in other words, when you have bright studio lights reflecting off the metallic print, this is when the problems occur, however, with the graphite grade being printed on every edge of the hexagonal barrel, light reflection does not pose issues.
Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Graphite Sets Available
In this particular range for Koh-I-Noor, the selection is quite straightforward and simple. The Set that I am reviewing is a 12 set ranging from 8B to 2H, so in the entire set you get the following graphite grades 8B 7B 6B 5B 4B 3B 2B B HB F H and finally 2H
There is a second set of 12 in the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or range and in this set you are given the following grades of graphite. 8B to 8H. For those of you familiar with the graphite grading system, I am sure you can see that there is going to be a few grades missing from this set to allow for 12 pencils. 8B 6B 4B 2B B HB F H 2H 4H 6H and finally 8H
You can purchase the pencils in open stock, I have found this to mostly be the case in art stores and less so on Amazon. Here in the UK Cult Pens sell all grades of graphite open stock. for the most part on the likes of Amazon, you can purchase the grade of graphite you are looking for in packs of 12, which is really inexpensive, however I will list prices further into the review.
Regarding the grades of graphite available in this line of Koh-I-Noor pencils, the H grade goes all the way up to 10H and the B grade goes as high as 8B, with of course every grade in-between available.
Koh-I-Noor Soft Pencil Eraser and 80ml Koh-I-Noor Graphite Powder
I know this review is about the Koh-I-Noor graphite pencils, however in the art work that I created with the pencils for the speed drawing I have provided, I also used two other Koh-I-Noor products which I feel I should mention.
The first is the Koh-I-Noor Soft Pencil Eraser, I first used this item about two years ago and purchased about 10 of them just in case they ever run out of them. This Koh-I-Noor pencil eraser is in my opinion one of the finest pencil erasers about thus far. I say thus far as I have not used them all yet. As the name suggest this is a soft eraser in a pencil form and it lifts graphite beautifully without strikes, page damage and with ease.
For the background of the Ballet Shoes, I used this Koh-I-Noor Graphite Powder, I poured a bit into a small bowl and used a cotton bud to apply the graphite. Many companies sell graphite powder and there are really simply ways of making your own. However, for this particular drawing, this was perfect for me and the same goes for the graphite grade, which I believe was about 4 or 5B. I will do more in-depth reviews on both these products at a later date.
Koh-I-Noor Professional Graphite Performance
For those of you not familiar, graphite is graded in levels of hardness and softness or light and dark. HB is right in the center of the scale, H stands for Hardness and B stands for Blackness or Black. Pencils in the H grade are both very hard and very light in color, this is because the H grades, the higher the number goes, the less graphite is added and the more clay is added.
The B grade however is the opposite, the B graded pencils are very dark and very soft, so the higher you go in the B scale, like a 9B, is incredibly soft core and will appear very dark on the paper. There is an F and this is in the middle of the scale also, however the F stands for Fine. this is why so many of us used HB pencils at school, because the HB grade is the heart of the scale.
The hardest grade in the Koh-I-Noor Graphite set that I have reviewed was the 2H, which is not the lightest or hardest core considering the H range can go as high as 10. Never the less, in this particular set, I found the 2H and H to be a tad bit gritty. This is of course to be expected given there is more clay being added to the mixture.
The grades above these, F, HB, B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, 6B, 7B and 8B all delivered smooth finishes with absolutely no grit. With some of the other graphite sets I have tried, the 8B ranges have all been really black but created a shine that in certain light condition made the black look silver. Unfortunately this is to be expected in graphite, however with the Koh-I-Noor graphite set, I found a lot less shine but the high end B grades are not as black as some of he other.
The 8B, 7B grades etc may not be quite as dark as some of the other sets on the market, but this is a personal thing, graphite artists know what they want and the type of graphite they are after.
On the tests I conducted, each grade of graphite from 2H to 8B, once layered on Strathmore 500 Series Bristol Plate 100% cotton, erased easily as you can see from the images supplied or take a look at the video review. With regards to blending, all of the grades in this review blended incredibly well. I used cotton buds, paper stumps and tissue paper, all of which worked well.
With other graphite pencils I have used, the second your hand accidentally touches the graphite on the paper, it transfers to your hand, making a mess every time you hand touches the paper. For some reason this did not appear to be the case with the Koh-I-Noor graphite, certainly not as noticeable compared to other graphite pencils I have tested.
Ordinarily I would have also tested the Koh-I-Noor Graphite pencils on some Bristol Velum paper, something with a bit of tooth to the paper, however due to the COVID-19 situation, delivery dates on Velum I have ordered are taking a while. Ordinarily I try to test the products I am reviewing a few different paper types to get a better understanding of how the medium reacts.
Koh-I-noor Toison D’or Graphite Prices
UK Prices
Here in the UK you can purchase both 12 sets, the Art 8B - 2H and the Art 8B to 8H for £14.00 each. If you wanted to purchase the pencils open stock from the likes of Cult Pens, each pencil is £0.65 or you could purchases the individual grades in packs of 12 for £6. The Koh-I-Noor Soft Pencil Eraser is £0.99 and the Koh-I-Noor Powder Graphite is priced at £6.49. I know this review is not about the final two products I have listed never the less they are both products I love using and I thought I should list them.
U.S.A Prices
In the USA, on Amazon.com I wasn’t able to find a lot of Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or products, however for both the 12 set tins of 8B - 2H and 8H - 8B in Jerrys Artarama they can be purchased for approximately $15
EU Prices
In the EU, the 12 sets tins of 8H - 8B can be purchased for €10 or for the 12 set of 8B - 2H you can purchase that for €6. If you wanted to purchase a 12 pack of a particular grade of graphite you would have to pay €11.05 . For the Koh-I-Noor Graphite Powder you will pay approximately €6.49
Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I have not really done a lot of just graphite art, however, I really enjoyed working with the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Graphite pencils and to be honest I was really happy with the final outcome of my art work.
In my experience, a lot of the H grade pencils can be a little bit gritty, some more than others, although I did experience some grittiness in the 2H and H graded pencils, it was never to the detriment of the art work. The softer grades were incredibly soft, no issues what so ever.
There are two things however that I would like to mention about the Koh-I-noor graphite although I think these are more subjective and down to personal preference more than anything else. The first is how dark the higher B graded graphite appears. I personally didn't’t find this an issue, however I know there are graphite artists that like to have jet black graphite, this is why I would suggest checking out my video review of the pencils so that you can see the graphite laid down on paper.
The next issue I have is that I would personally like to see Koh-I-Noor release a 24 set of the Toison D’or Graphite Pencils, even if that means adding a few extra of certain grades and maybe a Pencil Eraser in the pack to make the numbers up to 24. Overall I really enjoyed using the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Graphite pencils and was really happy with the art work I completed.
To see my speed drawing using the Koh-I-Noor Toison D’or Graphite Pencils just follow the link or to see my full YouTube video review and see me testing the pencils in real time, again, follow the link. For future content on all my reviews make sure you are following The Art Gear Guide on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and I will soon be adding regular live streams to the channel as well
