CRETACOLOR Drawing, 25 Piece Set, Multi

This is a well packaged item that showed no signs of damage until I opened the inner tin... inside the sealed tin nearly everything was broken and spread out black charcoal has colored every white charcoal and permanently stained all of the items. It seems like the manufacturer should add some shock absorbing foam to the kit for shipping. That said, it is a great kit with a ton of potential if you have a way to deal with the broken chunks. It has a variety of regular charcoals and nero oil charcoal(oil base blends amazingly with mineral spirits) 5.6mm clutch will help hold the smaller leads. It also has the 'black chaulk' pencil which is one of the blackest blacks available in any dry media. Great set, bad package protection from cretacolor.

It would be a good set but mine must of been extra jostled as the pencils the charcoal lead broke every time I tried to sharpen them.

When I opened it many of the pieces were broken and it looked used. Was looking forward to using it for art, but it was not new. It was a bit pricey too so I was expecting it to be good.

Leads, chalks, graphite sticks, charcoal sticks, arrived broken, with only one exception. It seems that inside the tin box, there is no adequate cushioning to avoid these delicate items to break. I received a similar package with just hard chalks inside carboard boxes, but with protecting foam and they arrived intact.

Great set, but came broken. More robust packaging needed.