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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

The "Pentel Kerry" is an excellent mechanical pencil. Anyone who wants good ol' erasable lead probably should go for the Pentel Kerry.

Its not a "Pen", but Jetpens does sell it and did recommend it.

The one downside is that Pentel's mechanical-pencil erasers are tiny. They are good quality rubber though and work well, but their small size wears out incredibly quickly.

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I always favored the Twist-Erase III for exactly that reason. Not what anyone would call elegant, but extremely serviceable, and elegance seems more fitting a concern for pens in any case.

Ah, the big eraser looks like just the thing for me. And you can get them with 0.9 mm lead. I'm such a clumsy writer, and have pretty much given up on pens. We're not required to use them for lab notebooks any more.

If you want to improve your hand, I've found fountain pens good for that - the way they work makes it easier to write well than poorly. A Pilot Metropolitan is inexpensive, handsome, pleasant to use, and steel-nibbed to hold up to inexperienced use; as a starter pen it's unmatched, and might be worth a try if you're not quite ready to give up on pens altogether.

I'm always torn between the Kerry and the Uni Kurutoga. I have both, and they are both a pleasure to use.

The Kuro Toga is hard to beat. On the Advance, the lead rotation makes it effectively a lead size smaller and the sliding sleeve prevents lead breakage.

+1 for Kerry. It feels extremely smooth and it's probably the best mechanical pencil I've used.

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