I was just listening to that episode this morning. They said that pencil sales had five years of consecutive decline — but sales of pens were actually rising.

I was just listening to that episode this morning. They said that pencil sales had five years of consecutive decline — but sales of pens were actually rising. That's coming off of a huge upswing in 2012, when pencil sales increased by 6.8%. Definitely not the lowest in a century, in fact, the industry is much higher than it was fifty years ago simply due to population growth, even though per capita use may be down.