Today Angela Stone takes us on a journey through the majestic land of pencils. You never knew how much you needed an expensive pencil until this article! Enter Angela:

There is expensive, there is ridiculously expensive, and then there is just ridiculous. Take, for example, Ashrita Furman’s 76 foot long, 21,500 lb, $20,000 pencil housed at the City Museum of St. Louis. With all due respect to the Gateway City, the pencil itself is a mockery of all things graphite. It is too big, too unwieldy, and for the connoisseur of pencil artistry, a deliberately ridiculous example of excess.

Pencils are an instrument of the soul, and should be treated with the respect they deserve. From Thomas Edison to John Steinbeck, they have been used to shape and capture the human existence. Nearly every American has grown up feeling first the sturdy grasp of thick learning pencils and later the steady lines of the standard yellow #2. They are a right of childhood, a marker as we make our way to adulthood.

Yet little do most of us know that these simple bastions of youth have been secretly conditioning us to accept failure. Indeed, the days of the .08-cent pencil may have delighted our greedy parents, but that time is past. Today, the world has grown to offer us choice – choice that forces us to recognize both the inadequacy of the cheap pencil, and to learn appreciation for the joys of a proper, high-class writing instrument.

With all their many shapes and sizes, it is easy to see how many could confuse lazy simplicity with true artistry. Luckily, luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Hermes have taken up the challenge of providing good, quality pencils like the Hermes Arlequin H Pencil. Bound in leather, and with a price tag of only $85, the Arlequin H is not only an affordable first step for many pencil buyers, but a favorite for children.

Meanwhile, Louis Vuitton offers even more for those pencil buyers looking for a decent pencil at a still modest price. For $255, the Golden Agenda Pencil features a thin frame and a refined golden brass finish. You will have to hurry to a store though, as of right now, the deal is just too good to be true, and the store is sold out online.

Reaching into quality pencils, we begin to find true majesty in Yard O Led’s Sceptre Amethyst Pencil-Paneled Barley Finish and Perfecta Pencil with a Victorian finish. With elegant lines and a delicacy made for the angels, at $475 and $425 respectively, these feather-light pencils may just make your hands shake under the weight of their beauty.

It is true, the world is full of magnificent pencils, and yet none can hold a flame to the greatest ever created. A limited edition produced by the Graf von Faber-Castell Collection in 2008, the Perfect Pencil was made of 240-year-old olive wood and 18c-white gold. Coming complete with an end piece to protect the tip, an extender with built in eraser and sharpener, three quality diamonds, and a price tag of $12,800; money truly is everything. Sadly, with only 99 of these majestic pencils ever created, most will have to settle for the non-limited editions that cost a meager $250.

Some will call these pencils ridiculously expensive; I choose to call them a necessity. After all, when a man cannot afford to buy a $450 dollar pencil, there can be only one reason; frivolity. He has spent his money on things that do not matter, and therefore should not be pitied. Food, groceries? What good are they without a pencil to write the picture of the soul?

Angela Stone wrote this article on behalf of Promotional Pencils, where you can create your own custom pencils (for a lot less than what these pencils are going for).