Hey, this is Stephen Dubner. Last week on Freakonomics Radio, we pondered the decline of an

everyday activity. Handwriting's going away.

And TrueBeck studies the history of handwriting and handwriting technology. In a world that is

increasingly digital, TrueBeck argues, teaching handwriting in schools is time poorly spent.

I think it will continue to diminish in elementary education. It will continue to diminish in our

everyday lives as it has already.

And as handwriting diminishes, so does our need for writing instruments.

The numbers of examples of things that you still need to be able to use a pen or pencil

and paper in the ordinary course of a work day, it's shrinking.

Indeed, the Market Research firm Euro Monitor International has found that in the US at least

the sales of writing instruments has had five years of consecutive decline, with a forecast

for more of the same.

That said, sales of pens have been rising slightly. It's the pencil that is fading in the

bright light of the digital age. Global pencil sales this year are expected to reach just

2.6 billion dollars. That means that someone like, say, Stephen Spielberg could buy up every

single new pencil this year around the world and still have a billion dollars left for popcorn

or pie or a dozen Gulfstream G650s. And yet, despite the small and shrinking stature of

the lowly pencil, there is a new shop in New York City, a tiny storefront on the low

reside, whose stock is most singular.

We sell only pencils, new pencils, rare pencils, antique pencils, novelty pencils, pencil

accessories.

Caroline Weaver is the proprietor of CW pencil enterprise.

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