Gold Horse B-89 Colored Pencils Review: A Budget Look at a Premium-Style 78 Set

Introduction

Some pencil sets arrive with a reputation. Others arrive with a look that seems borrowed from one. The Gold Horse B-89 78-set falls firmly into the second category: a boxed set styled so closely after a well-known premium range that it practically invites scrutiny. The surprise is what happens once the lid comes off, because the pencils inside perform far better than the suspicious presentation suggests.

Packaging: Familiar, and That Is the Point

The 78-set arrives in a cardboard presentation box with a color swatch design on the lid rather than an illustration, a rubber foam protective layer above the first tier, and three layers of pencils each seated in individual foam slots with ribbon pulls. Each tier is cushioned underneath by another foam layer. The overall experience feels premium and, notably, mirrors the packaging conventions of a certain high-end pencil line almost point for point.

There is one meaningful discrepancy worth knowing about before buying. Product listing images show a pigment identifier around one centimeter long, matching the premium pencil it resembles, but the actual pencils ship with a noticeably longer identifier of about 2.5 cm. Some colors shown in those listing images also do not exist in the set itself. Whether this is deliberate mimicry or just clumsy marketing is impossible to confirm, but buyers should judge the product by the pencils that arrive, not the ones in the listing.

Pencil Build and Barrel Details

The core measures 3.7 mm in diameter with a 7.5 mm barrel, very close to the 3.8 mm core and 7.9 mm barrel of the premium set it imitates. The barrel is natural wood grain, with the Gold Horse logo along one side, the B-89 model number, two decorative silver rings near the pigment identifier, and “since 1967” printed on the end. Pigments are identified by number only; there is no pigment name printed on the barrel, the packaging, or the brand website.

Swatching and Color Balance

Swatched on Strathmore 300 series Bristol vellum, the colors come out bright and genuinely vibrant, which was not the expectation going in. The 78-color palette is also well balanced: no color family is oversaturated with near-identical shades, and the set includes a modest run of portrait colors and a good spread of earth tones, finishing with a gold and a silver.

One gap stands out for botanical work: the greens lean toward the blue end of the spectrum, in the vein of viridian and hooker’s green, with only one pleasant olive option. A darker, more olive-leaning green would have rounded the palette out nicely.

Layering and Blending Performance

Layering is where these pencils genuinely impress. Built up in five light layers on Bristol vellum, the pigment took beautifully with no blooming and no tackiness, which matters for artists who use odorless mineral spirits and typically need three to five layers of pigment before a first solvent pass. In a side-by-side heavy application against a premium oil-based pencil, the two were remarkably close, with only a hint more brightness from the premium pencil at the very limit of scrutiny.

Blending tests produced clean third colors: a solid orange from red and yellow, a nice green from yellow and blue, and a genuinely significant purple from red and blue, one of the harder pairs to blend convincingly. An odorless mineral spirits pass also broke the core down well, reinvigorating the paper tooth for continued layering.

Black Paper Test

On black paper, nearly all the Gold Horse colors tested came out nicely opaque, with the exception of one yellow. The premium comparison set still edged ahead slightly, with somewhat more vivid opacity and a crisper, more opaque white. This test measures translucency rather than quality: artists who prefer translucent pencils like Polychromos and those who prefer opaque pencils each know what they want, and the Gold Horse sits clearly in the opaque camp.

Real Artwork Test

A finished kingfisher drawing on good-quality paper proved to be the real verdict. The pencils layered endlessly, accepting more and more pigment without complaint, produced rich darks in the eye area, and delivered the vibrant oranges and yellows that make the subject worth drawing.

During actual artwork, the difference from the premium comparison set was frequently impossible to detect. That is high praise for a set that costs a fraction of the price.

The Lightfastness Problem

Here is the one genuine dealbreaker. The brand website offers no real lightfast data, only the vague claim “not easy to fade.” That is no gauge of anything. If you sell original artwork, you cannot verify the permanence of these pigments, which makes the set unsuitable for sellable work. A lightfast-rated premium pencil is the safer choice for anything that will hang on a client’s wall.

Core Hardness Comparison

Under heavy pressure, the Gold Horse core is slightly harder than the comparison pencil, which is noticeably softer and produces more crumbs. Both pencils depleted at roughly equal rates across the same coverage, so the difference is in feel rather than economy. If you prefer a firmer core that holds a point, this is a point in the Gold Horse’s favor.

Buying Advice

At the time of purchase, the 78-set cost around £73, just under a pound per pencil, compared to roughly £220 to £250 and above for a 76-set of the premium comparison. The only meaningful difference found across all testing was lightfastness documentation. For a developing artist who cannot yet justify the premium price and is not selling originals, this set is an excellent skill-building platform and a genuinely pleasant drawing experience. Be aware that the brand also sells a 48-set whose listing looks identical but contains completely different full-body lacquered pencils, so double-check exactly which set you are ordering.

Conclusion

The Gold Horse B-89 is a frustrating product to recommend and an easy one to like. The pencils themselves are beautiful to use: vibrant, well-balanced, superb layerers that blend cleanly and handle solvent work with confidence. The marketing around them, however, leans uncomfortably hard on premium packaging cues and listing images that do not match the product. If you can accept a missing lightfast rating and buy with your eyes open, this is one of the better-value 78-color sets available.