Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If I had it to do over, I do not know that I would purchase these pencils from Amazon, not even sure if I would purchase these pencils over another brand. I bought mine for "coloring" and leisure use - so it was a rather large recreational investment. After about a week of usage, I began to realize that many of the pencils, in my box at least, are defective. At least 15 of the pencils in my box have wooden shafts that are splitting lengthwise, It is not severe, but, very noticeable. At least 5 of the pencils have severe lead breakage issues when they are sharpened and the leads are falling out - they were not dropped on the floor or misued. The quality of the wax is pretty bad in about half of the pencils - they do not write normally - the wax globs on the paper and flakes off the end of the pencil instead of making any kind of smooth lines, these same pencils will not hold any kind of a sharpened point. I have to use a blender stick to press the fallen off wax into the paper..... A look at the non sharp ends of may of the pencils shows that the lead hole is quite off center. About 50% of the pencils are great. As for the rest, I feel like I got a box full of factory seconds. This is one Amazon purchase that I am definitely not happy with. I've contacted Prismacolor but they do not have the best reputation for customer service, from what I have read, perhaps I will be surprised. Since this is not an item that is really returnable after you have been using it for a week and figured it out to be defective - I've had to sharpen two pencils so much, the ones that have the worst defective leads that keep falling out - they are already half as short as they came - I do not know if I would by an expensive pencil set from Amazon again. Have included an example pic of the typical pencil shaft crack issue present. Also a pic of the off variety of placement of the lead holes - it makes a big difference when you go to put a point on the pencil if this is not in the center............ This is a lot of money for "second" quality merchandise.