Guys. Look what just came in the mail. I am excited. Now,
I was in the process of making a whole different video about how to turn copy printer paper into watercolor paper
but THIS is more exciting.
What's up, guys? It's Rae here and welcome back to my channel,
and as you guys saw I am clearly super excited for today's video. As
shown in the thumbnail/title,
I was lucky enough to find 100 year old colored pencils. And what better way to honor
said colored pencils than by testing them out and putting them against modern-day colored pencils?
As you guys can see I've never opened these before,
I just opened them from my eBay package that just came in the mail like 30 minutes ago and
so yeah, here's the moment of truth.
I've never ordered antiques before so the days coming I was expecting it to come in like a special packaging
that is very highly protective. But nope. It's in a Ziploc, which is fine with me. I don't care.
I was lucky enough to find them for a really really great price.
Now that they're out of the package I just want to stare at them.
It's crazy to think that these pencils are at least 100 years old.
Like, can you imagine the person who originally owned these, like how would I explain to them that in a hundred years from now
I'm gonna be making a video on the internet and putting it on YouTube testing these? It's bonkers.
Anyway, I'll quit rambling. Let's get on with the review.
So these pencils are made by Eagle Pencil Company who are now owned by another brand:
Prismacolor. I think you might have heard of them. As you guys can see, the packaging isn't
necessarily the best condition, but hey for a hundred years old,
this looks pretty bomb. The two images on the box are actually lithographs that had to be glued on.
These were made before a time where you can just tell a computer where to put the image at,
so what you had to do was make the
lithograph, cut it out and then glue it on to the box.
So while I was waiting for these pencils to come in, I did a lot of research into Eagle Pencil Company. Now,
I searched the internet for any kind of information on Eagle Pencil Company.
I found a bunch of websites that are made for specifically pencil collecting and
what I have found are that these pencils are anywhere from
1890 all the way up until
1915. Which is insane if you think about it, that these pencils are well over 100 years old.
So it looks like whoever owned these last did not have easy access to a sharpener like you or I would, and back in their day
every time they had to sharpen their pencil, they would have to get a knife or something sharp and slowly sharpen it to a point.
Every. Single. Time. So just to compare,
this is a pencil that I sharpened with a
sharpener and you guys can see just how more precise and smooth the wood is compared to the, the crudely
sharpened pencils next to it.
Now onto the gorgeous, gorgeous lithograph of the woman on the box.
Well, what appears to be gorgeous. Upon further inspection,
you'll notice that somebody put like pencil marks all over her face to giving her like, a really weird look,
I don't know if it's creepy or funny or both but it looks pretty gnarly. And of course
we got to mention her style, which is a blue dress with some pom-poms on it.
Now if you look at the American progressive era, it was roughly the same kind of fashion and style as this was.
So I guess that gives us another clue as to how old these bad boys really are.
One thing I want to touch on right now is how faded everything is. Well, not even
faded necessarily, just darker. And so I'm kind of wondering, what if these pencils were made to be this dark and washed out because they
might have not had as easy access to colors as they do now?
So as you can see the modern yellow is SO much brighter on the outside than the old yellow.
And I want to ask you guys,
do you guys think that it was just the
circumstances that these pencils were made this dull or do you think it was time that slowly faded the color out of these pencils?
Okay, history lesson over, let's start testing these babies out.
So as you guys saw, we only have six colors; unfortunately, there's not a white or a black so we have a very limited palette here.
Now my first very thought when I put these to paper is *funny voice* oh my gawd. These are so smooth!
I have never in my life used a colored pencil this smooth. I was
shooketh, as the makeup people say. The 1890s were not playing around people. These pencils,
they're so smooth, like a baby's bottom. But before everybody goes and buys pencils from a hundred years ago,
there are downsides to these pencils. The first downside is that these are made with a very hard wax,
so yeah,
it's soft and nice and everything,
but the pigment goes everywhere and it spreads everywhere and it smears all over the place. And the second downside,
I don't know if this is time, but THIS kept happening.
It kept breaking every five seconds
so what I did was I got the chunk that fell out and I would just use that because
one thing I do not want to waste are these pencils. I can't just order them again
you know, I - these were all I could find on eBay. But other than that, I was really impressed with these hundred-year-old colored pencils.
They are coming for you Crayola!
But of course we have to have a final showdown between these and modern-day Prismacolors because I don't know, why not?
So I don't have the exact color since this brand isn't in existence anymore,
so these are the best matches that I could find of what I currently had.
It's pretty cool how the antique colored pencils, they don't have any words written on them.
I later found out that Eagle Pencil Company didn't start that until 1922.
But anyway back to the test, you can clearly see who is way more pigmented here and that's obviously Prismacolor!
But the Prismacolor is a lot more, I guess chalky, and that's because they have a lot more soft wax than the antique colored pencils.
But still it's really interesting to see how well these old, old colored pencils that probably sold for 5 cents work
so well compared to $20 pencils, you know.
And this leads us to our last test before I draw something and that is the blending test.
*Background music: "Shooting Stars"*
OK, can we talk about how perfect it blended from red to orange? That is like a perfect perfect transition,
oh my god!
And now my curiosity is gonna say, well does it work with a modern colored pencil? Because I do want to draw something
but if they don't mix well together, then I won't include a modern-day colored pencil, I'll just use strictly these.
And eh,
it did okay.
As expected, the Prismacolor
obviously overpowered the blue, but it blended alright, not bad. I'm not here complaining.
And lastly, the last, I guess test, I'm just gonna scribble something up really quick because I don't have that much memory on my
memory card. And we'll just scribble something up and see where it goes.
I did trace a skull picture online and I'm just gonna mess around with the colors a little bit. And
yeah, we'll just see where it goes. We'll see how these pencils work.
The only thing I'm upset about is the very limited palette,
ugh. I wish I could add so much more detail, but alas, I can't. And oh yeah, then there's this.
It just - bloop!
Fell right out. And maybe it's because like, the wood has
expanded or maybe the color has shrunk a little bit cause of time. I don't know, whatever. I just put it back in there,
I'm gonna be really careful and just trek on.
And the whole time I was drawing these I was so happy with how smooth they were, they glided on the paper.
I've never ever in my life have found a pencil that glides this easy. I wish you guys could experience, it's so nice!
Anyway, guys,
thank you so much again for watching this video,
tune in next time and we'll make that paper that I was talking about in the beginning
and with that being said, I love you and I will see you next video.
*End music: "Shooting Stars"*