Erasers are Deep

Tags: gear

Here’s my problem with Amazon Prime: it’s 2:00 AM and I’m reading about erasers. There are so many options, but they’re all multi-packs. I’m stuck with my choice for a while, so I’d better choose carefully.

I can’t make a bad decision with the Internet on my side. A kind fellow at Pencil Talk experimented with 64 combinations of paper, pencil, and eraser to set the record straight. The Mars plastic eraser was a clear winner.

I’m sad about the years of wasted erasing potential spent toiling with the clearly inferior Pink Pearl.

But I’m still curious about the Pentel Hi-Polymer. It looks a lot like the Mars plastic, and it seems to rank well on Amazon. Dave from Dave’s Mechanical Pencils has a head to head review of the Mars and Pentel varieties. They’re virtually equivalent, so it largely comes down to availability.
A Penchant for Paper does a similar review, and throws a private label into the mix. The private label doesn’t live up to the reputation of the name brands in this case.

It’s exciting to live in a time where we have such cognitive surplus that we can devote brain power to eraser effectiveness. We’re not so many years removed from times when our predecessors would have obsessed over the effectiveness of grain production and storage. Erasers are a sideline hobby while civilization figures out quantum mechanics and space exploration.