Inspired by a conversation I noticed between @stargirl3 and @photographermom … what kind of pencil do you covet? Ticonderoga? Mechanical? What’s the pencil you want to be on a stranded island with?? I have a friend who orders a special pencil that has a grade of 2.5 so he’ll always know when someone has ‘borrowed it’ …I’ll go first with an outlier, Prismacolor Raisin Noir. My pockets are filled with this pencil.
My DS likes mechanical 0.9mm. He tends to go through them a lot so whenever I see boxes of BIC brand 0.9mm mechanical pencils in store I hoard them. 
I used to like 0.5mm mechanicals but I rarely use pencils.
Oh my goodness. I have this pencil from Japan (wink @Disneymama) and the lead is “unbreakable” (I’ve managed to break it when I’ve tried) but it’s soooo nice. I love it so much that I don’t take it to school.
I also have a multi-colored pen that has a pencil too, and it’s perfect for doing all the different colored headlines in my history notes. 
P.S. I have no recollection of this conversation.
My handy Pentel GraphGear 1000, 0.5 point is the best pencil I have ever had.
Also love my Lamy Safari 0.5, and my Alpha Gel pencils, slim and fat, always 0.5.
Kuru Togas are awesome, and their roulette is great, 0.5 as well.
Uni shift is nice, and I love my Doctor Grips.
Still, my custom GraphGear is my favorite pencil ever. Lucky pencil too.
Just realized the extent to which my mechanical pencil madness has consumed me…
I highly recommend going to jetpens.com for stationery.
I like the Staedler Black Norica (#2, HB) pencil. The pencil lead is strong so even if you lightly shade/color in something, the pencil marks are still pretty dark, which is great for standardized tests, in my opinion!
I use the uni kuru toga as well as various pentel’s, but I am still looking for a quality pencil that has nice grip and will not slip from the hand easily.
@Verit4s: Have you ever tried using one of those gel grips that you can slide onto your pencil? They are kind of thick, but my hand always remains firm on the pencil whenever using the gel grips.
OMG. Gel grips. Throwback to fourth grade when those were quite the rage.
You guys are all kinds of awesome
Also shoutout to the Pentel Kerry Sharp, which remains one of my favorite pencils, and also comes with a nifty looking holder case.
*Sharp Kerry- my mistake.
I just buy whatever is cheapest and is mechanical. I hate gel grips.
My favorite (American) mechanical pencils are the cheap Bic ones that come in a bunch of colors.
Faber Castell
I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Pencils are pencils in my opinion. 
Right now, I’m using the Pentel and Papermate Twisty erase pencils. I lose like ten pencils everyday. 
I also have a caran d’ache that is pretty nice and has a wider body than most pencils but again it has NO grip. haha
Westover had some nice mechanical pencils in their admission office, which I took the liberty of snagging.