Lead Pickaxe

This is the pickaxe you build in the first hour of a world and then stop thinking about. It handles stone, the early ores and gems, and it stops just short of Meteorite, which is the wall that pushes you toward the next ore tier. If your world rolled iron instead, the gap between the two is small enough that neither one changes your route through the early game.

There are two clean ways past it. A Reaver Shark caught off the Ocean digs deeper than it does and needs no ore at all, and once the world evil boss is down the pickaxe made from its bars leaves this one behind for good. If you are going to reforge it, mining speed is what you actually feel while tunneling; the damage number on a pickaxe is mostly decoration.