I don't have the handwriting or the drawing skills to truly appreciate the world's finest pencils, but I enjoyed this history of their development froml someone who clearly does.

The Golden Age of Japanese Pencils, 1952-1967
It was the summer of 1952, and the executives of Tombow Pencil were about to revolutionize the Japanese pencil industry—or, possibly, fall flat on their faces. Hachiro Ogawa, the son of founder Harunosuke Ogawa, was Tombow's managing director, and he had just finished a years-long project, at enormous cost,
notes.stlartsupply.com
