World's Largest Pencil

St. Louis, Missouri, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A 76-foot pencil built in Queens, New York, in 2007 by Ashrita Furman and a team, now on the third floor of City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, according to St. Louis Magazine. The museum gives its weight as over 21,000 pounds, including 4,000 pounds of graphite.

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World's Largest Pencil

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Site-level location · 38.6326° N, 90.2079° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

The world's largest pencil began as a tribute to a spiritual teacher's birthday and now sits reassembled on the third floor of a St. Louis museum.

Ashrita Furman, a record-setter, wrote in September 2007 that a team from about 15 countries had spent two weeks building a 76-foot pencil that looked “precisely like a normal pencil” and used the same materials. He gave the figures as over 8,000 board feet of wood, 4,500 pounds of graphite and a 250-pound eraser. It was designed, he wrote, to commemorate Sri Chinmoy’s 76th birthday, and to top the 64-foot pencil he said Faber-Castell had built to beat his earlier record.

The Sri Chinmoy Centre reported that the pencil, built in Queens, New York, weighed over 18,000 pounds; Furman’s post is titled with 21,000. City Museum gives 21,000-plus pounds, with 4,000 pounds of graphite.

The pencil moved to St. Louis after its time in Queens. According to a City Museum post, it had to be cut in half, was loaded in through a third-floor window and was reassembled; part of the graphite running through the centre can be seen. The museum says it was installed in Skateless Park after an extended discussion among members of the Cassilly crew about what to do with it.

St. Louis Magazine’s 2025 visitor guide lists the pencil on the third floor alongside a giant pair of underwear and the Skateless Skatepark. The magazine advises buying museum tickets online and wearing closed-toe shoes.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

The pencil is on City Museum's third floor, in the same part of the building as the Skateless Skatepark and a giant pair of underwear, according to St. Louis Magazine (2025). The museum is ticketed; the magazine advises buying online and wearing closed-toe shoes.

ACCESS

Inside City Museum, 750 N. 16th Street, St. Louis, MO 63103, on the third floor. Seeing it requires museum admission; the pencil is an indoor exhibit.

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