Cartoonist David Rees becomes professional pencil sharpener

David Rees, a former political cartoonist, reinvented himself as a professional pencil sharpener.

Working from New York’s Humber River Valley, Rees “practises the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening.”

Sharpened pencils mailed to Canada run $40 each, pencil included. They’re shipped with a “certificate of sharpening.”

For $70, Canadians get a pencil and his book: How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening.

He told the Boing Boing website he’s considering retirement when he hits 2,000 pencils: “You do anything long enough for money, it just starts to become a job.”