Customer Ratings: 
List Price: $10.65
Sale Price: $6.99
Today's Bonus: 34% Off
UPDATE: 1-26-2012
I have been using this pencil sharpener faithfully since my original review, to the extent that 2 things happened. First, the blades (including the spare set) finally dulled, and I discovered that buying a pack of blades is a rather difficult task. Not wanting to leave the comfort of my apartment to venture to a physical art store, I searched online a bit and finally just bought another one of these sharpeners, largely because of the second thing: the lid broke off. The "hinge" for the clear plastic lid is just thin flexible plastic, but after opening and closing it enough times to dump the shavings, it broke off. This is hardly a design flaw as a metal hinge would be ridiculous and the sharpener worked well for a VERY long time. It is just worth noting.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I do a lot of pencil drawing with regular #2 pencils and I demand a very sharp point for thin, precise lines. Electric sharpeners can be good, but finding the right one is giant pain as many tend to do more harm than good. I have one that I use on brand new pencils, but for actually creating the desired sharp tip, or restoring the tip after a brief bit of drawing, a hand sharpener is best. I have tried many of these as well, mostly cheap items from the back-to-school bin, and they really don't work. Some shatter the pencil while others leave the tip dull and rounded, completely invalidating their purpose.
The Kum long point sharpener is not cheap rubbish. Its price, while relatively low, may seem steep for a simple hand pencil sharpener, but it's worth the extra bucks. The sharpener includes two blades. One is used to get the pencil "ready" for the second blade; it's a sort of preliminary "prep" blade. If you only used the first one, you would be pretty disappointed with the results. But, use the second blade afterward, and the pencil takes on a perfect, extremely sharp tip. The sharpener includes a small compartment for the pencil shavings, so that you don't have to hold it over the trash while using it.
I'm very pleased with the Kum long point sharpener, and I would recommend it to any artist who is fed up with other, ineffective sharpening tools.
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