For Christmas 2019 I received the new set of Derwent metallic pencils. It’s a limited edition, but if you look good enough, they’re still available online. There’s also the common set of twelve Derwent new metallic pencils. I say ‘new’, because previously there was a set of twelve Derwent metallics, but those were water-soluble pencils. The new ones are not water-soluble!

I must admit that I hadn’t used them until now. In the back of my mind I was still thinking ‘I want to review them’, but somehow I never got to do that. Until I saw that Marco, the Chinese brand, also had metallic pencils in the Raffiné range. Actually I had seen them earlier, but never felt the urge to buy them. I’m not a big fan of the Marco Raffiné pencils. I’ve got them in my stash, but only used them a couple of times when I first had them and after that I’ve put them away.

But then I thought of comparing the Marco metallic pencils with the Derwent metallic pencils. So a few weeks ago I ordered the Marco metallics after all.

Comparing metallic pencils in a video

Let’s dive into it. I’ve made a video in which I show you all the colors of both sets, 12 Marco Raffiné metallic pencils and 20 Derwent metallics.

Conclusion

As you could clearly see in the video, assuming you watched it, the Marco metallic pencils didn’t really look like metallic. Just two of them, the gold and silver ones, were good. The other ten were not good at all in my opinion. I must admit that on the black paper, they looked a lot better than on the white paper, but still… not really metallic. They had a little bit of a sheen, but that was about it.

So as you’ve probably already saw and heard in the video, my conclusion is that the Marco Raffiné metallic pencils are a bad choice. Even when you consider that they only cost about 6 dollar (5 Euro/4 pound), I still think they’re too expensive. Because for those six dollar, you actually only get two pencils that are true metallics. Which then is three dollar each, and eight pencils that are pretty much useless.

Maybe I’m too negative, but I appreciate quality and I’m willing to pay for it. These Marco pencils do not live up to my standards of quality, but of course you might differ in opinion. That’s totally up to you! At least you now know the difference between the two brands, and you can make a choice. Are you going for quality with a price tag, or would you rather choose for cheap and take a lesser quality for granted?

I would love to hear what your thoughts are, so let me know in the comments below!

Color charts and where to buy

Of course I’ve also made color charts for both sets. Click here for the Derwent Metallics set of 20, and here for the Marco Raffiné metallics set of 12. My Derwents came from Amazon and the Marco’s I’ve ordered on Ali Express.

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Greetz,

Disclosure: I’ve bought both pencil sets myself. I am not affiliated with Amazon nor AliExpress. For more information please read my Disclosure Promos page!