Fortune: “Walking into Caroline Weaver’s empire in New York City feels like stepping into an Instagram photo. It’s ironic, given that her shop is dedicated to a tool many consider to be a relic of a time gone by—a product rendered obsolete by the same invention: the Internet, which in turn gave way to Instagram. But CW Pencil Enterprise is possibly the only pencil specialty shop of its kind worldwide. And it turns out people are still buying pencils. “I can’t do much market research because there is no other shop [like ours],” says Weaver. “But there’s somebody in every demographic of person in the world who uses pencils and cares deeply about them.” The paradox of leading a successful retail business in the era of all things online isn’t lost on Weaver, 29, who believes that specialty shops will stay relevant as long as their competence in their chosen specialty is kept paramount..,

Weaver must find a way to narrow down the over 250 pencils available in the shop during any given day. These hail from at least 15 different countries and, contrary to popular belief, not all pencils are created equal. Although the traditional wood-cased pencil has been made the same since the 1800s (graphite, clay, and water), companies around the globe have been trying to perfect the product—and define what that perfection even looks like—in recent times..”