Shangching, I also noticed their inconsistent grades, I think I mentioned it in my blog post about their graphic pencils. I wonder why the pencils you mentioned were difficult to erase. Normally I find harder pencils easy to eraser, but there is also a bigger indentation in the paper where you wrote, so despite erasing you can still read the text – but if you couldn’t erase the marks, maybe they added something else to the clay/graphite mix when making the lead, something the erasers couldn’t remove‽

Randy Schwartz, I really like the Bonanza (link). I got my first ones from Kent (link) many years ago. Luckily, by the time I used my stock (nearly) up, they were being sold on eBay 8^)

Blue (HB), an Orangey sort of Brown (2B) and Green (2H).

The pack on offer in Chapitre had one each of the 2H and 2B, and three HBs.

Following your tip, I sharpened them in the long point sharpener before returning them – a very odd feel in the sharpener indeed, although it works nicely for these.

Now THIS is OLD: http://www.pencilrevolution.com/2005/08/review-of-papermate-american-naturals/

My pal and I were marvelling at the Noris pencils you sent me. He was very surprised to learn that they are “school pencils” in the UK since the USA equivalent would be very ugly and certainly not write as well. I LOVE the Noris, too.

We had ugly tan and brown ones in the 80s when I was in school. They were hidious at the time, though they’d certainly go well with a set of Field Notes.

So I moved to the next version up (High Grade) which I preferred as it had more heft than this one.

I guess you must have recognised two of the items in the picture

Yes, of course

Ah, thanks for that – I think my local pen shop is a Faber Castell stockist, so I’ll try to get along there and have a look at the pen “in the flesh”.

Regarding Rares’ comment – I don’t think I’ve used the Energizer, but my experience of the Pentel P200 series was very positive – if they had retractable tips, they’d be better still The Mars Micro I like, but the rubbery grips get a bit icky after a while, in my experience. With hindsight, I think I like a plain plastic, or metal grip on pens and pencils more, although I use woodcase pencils & leadholders (Koh-I-Noor 2mm & 5.6mm, Worther 3.12mm) far more these days.

Gunther, thanks. I guess you must have recognised two of the items in the picture 8^)

Claire, unfortunately my desk is a mess at the moment, so you’ll only get to see the part I’m constantly using at the moment (fountain pen with red ink, staple remover, eraser, paper clipper (Elle) and clips (in the Altoids tin)). Just outside the photo is a Leitz stapler and a very short Wopex in a Staedtler 900 25 pencil extender.

John, and others: Thanks for your kind wishes!

https://plus.google.com/photos/114714260583955778374/albums/5874582268025741601?authkey=CMvRm8WfhtaRSA

Rares, thanks for this detailed comment. Regarding the eraser strands, sometimes I move the paper over a bin and wipe them into the bin if there is one nearby.
I don’t think I’ve tried the Tikky20 yet, but I’ll buy one if I see one – to try it out.
The Tikky pencils are quite nice! I also just thought what a shame the red ring is only painted, instead of inserting a red plastic ring, then the red wouldn’t rub off over time.

The Pentel pencil is really cheap!
The TK Fine is nice, but the leads in my 0.3mm and 0.5mm TK Fines tend to break easily, which is annoying, especially with the 0.3mm where it happens often – especially if I retract the tip.

Yes, dust free are cool but still residue remains on the table. What do you do with it? Blow it off the table? Try to get the residue from the table in your palm so you can dump it in the trash? Leave it there, there will be some more in just a short time ? )

My favorite eraser is Rotring B, it’s quite expensive and wears out quickly, but is damn good. My everyday eraser of choice is Rotring Tikky (Tikky20) price is just right and erases very well. There could be other cheap and good erasers out there (for example Stabilo, who has very nice erasers) but I just love rotring brand, plus I used their products for most of my life. My first good mechanical pencil was a Rotring Tikky II .5mm yellow which I received from my mother when I was in 7 th grade, if I remember correctly (I lost it in high school).

I have to be honest and say Faber Castell are not so good compared to the competition (the cheap pencils). The Pentel Energizer cost me 2lei, that is 0.46 € according to Google. It was 3.5 times cheaper than the Grip Matic. And in my opinion is 3.5 times better than the Grip Matic. The only downside to it is the look and feel that you would receive from a pen, it’s a bit thick for my taste, but I learned to love it in a short time, 1 .. 2 pages. Also TK Fine has some build problems, the cap easily falls, and it’s not just my pencil, I know more people who lost the cap. My solution was bending the cap to fit better. The Rotring Tikky or Staedtler Mars Micro which are both cheaper pencils don’t have this kind of problem. Also the Mars Micro has a better tip retraction mechanism than TK Fine.

The winners have been determined this morning after I got the winning numbers from random.org today at 7:45 BST. I have emailed them and are waiting for their replies. If they don’t reply or if the don’t want the pens I will draw new numbers.

Rares, your description of the pencil advantages is great, but one problem I do have with some pencils is that some smudge or that the graphite can transfer to previous sheet of paper if you write on the next sheet of paper.
Regarding coloured leads, I agree. Good ones are difficult to find. Many break too easily. Regarding the durst from erasers, my favourite erasers are dust-free ones, not because of the wast that ends up in strands, but because they tend to eraser so well (at least the writing produced with the types of pencils and the kind of pressure I use when writing). I used the automatic Grip-Matic with coloured leads, but the automatic mechanism tends to break my coloured leads, so I only use coloured leads in non-automatic pencils these days.

William, I tried your damp paper towel suggestion, but I hardly get any colour – not more than if I try this on a pencil with non-water based paint, but holding the pencil might produce different results…

DES, regarding my Spendierlaune, I only pay the postage, the pens have been kindly provided by thepencompany.com 8^)

John the Monkey, I also thought so when I first saw the ivory colour, but it might look even nices if the tiles wheren’t laser etched but “moulded” into the body.

I prefer Fountain Pens of course and have been on a crusade to influence everyone around me to do the same. My house has no traces of ball point pens anymore, and it is strictly prohibited lol!

During architecture school I forced myself to use fountain pens (solely because I thought they looked cool) and continue to do so today, although it has its inconveniences, it is a real pleasure to go through the ritual of inking/pairing an ink to the pen depending on my mood and scenario in which the pen will be used.

Awiting Reply

United Stationaries

http://tygertale.wordpress.com/category/raymond-briggs-2/

I have to say, the e-motion range had never really appealed to me (although I love my Faber-Castell Basic) until seeing this ivory colour – that’s very appealing indeed!

Kaum zu glauben, deine Spendierlaune! Vielen Dank!

I usually use a fountain pen to take notes. My Noodler's Ahab with Heart of Darkness ink hasn't failed me yet . Pencils are usually reserved for exams and assignments.

Now I have 6 mechanical pencils, which I constantly rotate for every day use.
0.5 mm: Rotring Tikky (referred sometimes as tikky 3); Faber Castell Grip Matic 1375 (automatic); Pentel Energizer (automatic);
0.7 mm: Rotring Tikky II
0.9 mm / 1 mm: Faber Castell TK Fine 9719, Staedtler Mars micro
I have other mechanical pencils which I do not like this much or I don’t use them as often like a 2 mm clutch pencil.
I stopped writing with fountain pens a long time ago, almost 20 years. After the first years of school when writing with a fountain pen was mandatory, I switched to ballpoints.
But heaving a fountain pen is awesome. When you write with it feels so important and you do your best to write as calligraphically as possible. The artist within emerges. Fountain pens offer a very distinct feel, they are filled with elegance and history. You can’t buy them by a dozen. You don’t lose a fountain pen and say ohh well I’ll just buy a new one…
I have a few nice fountain pens in beautiful cases but they don’t see the paper as often as they shod.

Ian, my Ambition (with a B nib) dries out fairly quickly if I don’t use it for a week or so. Do you have the same problem with yours?

Alberto, it might be a good size for very big sketches (A3 size), but that’s just a guess.

Claire, I bought the notebook in HomeSense, which, I believe, is also in Canada (it belongs to the same group that also owns T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods in the USA). You never know what you find there, but what they have is usually discounted, sometimes heavily. There are some shops that sell teNeues in the UK as part of their regular product lineup. Paperchase used to sell teNeues, maybe they still do, but I normally don’t buy teNeues products full price as many of their stationery items don’t seem to be good vale for money for me (they will be for someone else who was just looking for something like that).

Sean, thanks for the link. Oh, I like the FC products that are still available, but that are still using this logo. I wonder whether the sharpener would work easily with the 1.4mm leads or whether you’d really have to try hard to keep the lead centred.

Barry, this comes as a surprise. My handwriting definitely got worse when I switched to ballpoint pens in the mid 90s, that’s why I switched back about 5 years ago.

William, the Technograph pencils are very nice. I’ve only tried HB and B so far and should try others as well. I didn’t know water based paint will come off when you hold it too long. Does that also happen with the Castell 9000 when you hold it for a long time?

Sleep-deprived nonsensical ramble aside: nice review. That journal also looks pretty nice. Will have to go do some googlin’….

F-C still have these small lead pointers for sale:
http://www.faber-castell.de/produkte/weitere-produkte/spitzer/Minenspitzerf%C3%BCrFallminen5041/184100

Might still work with a 1.4 mm lead if need be.

Hope you don’t mind me digressing and asking, is teNeues popular in the UK? I tried one teNeues hardcover notebook and liked it but couldn’t find it again in Toronto ever since The one in the picture looks really nice. I have a soft spot for cloth covers.

Right now I’m lving Omas and Graf von Faber Castel fountains. I’ve been looking for a nice everyday pen end the E-Motion might be it.

Thanks very much indeed for your outstanding and always inspiring blog, by the way!

Peter

Kevin, I didn’t put a weight on. As I just put the fountain pen in the cap and out of the cap there’s not enough force from the side to move the holder, so no weight needed. I’m positively surprised that the paper roll pencil protectors are useful for you. Since I keep mine on the pencils in a pencil case they are still like new, despite being made from cheap waste paper.

Sean, I don’t think dip pens would be suitable for this holder. The ones I know tend to have very fragile tines. I have an ink bottle from Pelikan with a pen rest. If I out dip pens down between writing I put them there, but most times I just write with them and then put the dip pens away.

As you might have noticed the whole for the pen cap is drilled though the wood. If I’d make a version especially for pencils (or dip pens) I would drill the whole into the wood, but I wouldn’t drill through, so that the pen doesn’t stain the desk. As this one was made with the intention of holding the pencil cap I drilled the hole through so that dust can’t collect in the hole.

And, I may be biased, but I really like the pencil version. The blue on the Mars complements the wood color very nicely.

Regarding the extenders with a ring. I haven’t used them for a long period of time yet, but didn’t find them uncomfortable for short periods of time. I just rest the index and middle fingers on the ring. It would really be interesting to know what people think who use them for long periods of time.

Thanks for the link to The Great Showdowns. I didn’t know this series before.

Regarding the ring type extenders, I have a question to those who use extenders like the AW Faber red above and Koh-I-Noor 1099: doesn’t the ring carve into your finger when holding it? Where should one place the fingers to hold it comfortably, on the pencil itself maybe?

Of the pencils I’ve tried, I find the 9000 blends slightly more easily than the Lumograph (although the Lumograph seems to give a darker line, which would tie in with Michael’s observation that the 9000 is a grade harder).

Scott produces a nice little series called “The Great Showdowns” which is on tumblr;

http://greatshowdowns.com/

Good fun if you’re a film fan!

About the Cloud Book: I just noticed that Stone Marketing is selling the Cloud Book in the UK for £15.

Just to let other readers know: I know about the red extender because in 2010 Gunther got more information about this extender from Faber-Castell. The red one is probably from 1932.

The fact the there is no model number printed on it might indicate that the orange extender is from the 1920s, but this is just a guess. I think I bought the orange extander a few years ago from eBay seller “penciladdict”.

Michael, thanks for this information. I should include a link to Cult Pens in the blog post. I haven’t tried the Derwent extender yet. There is a simple one from Caran d’Ache which is very cheap and nice, but because of the way it’s made it won’t work with all pencils – but it will work with “standard” pencils. If you’re in Würzburg anyway this is definitely a place to visit. There’s also a book shop in Würzburg with unusual stationery, but there are just a few different items as it is a book shop after all.

Do you have any details on the orange extender by A.W. Faber?

I think you are right about social media. To me, interaction (and for companies advertising) is at its core, not a two-sided communication about facts. Well, at least at its best – most of the time the whole caboodle is nothing more than a silly circus to me.

Unfortunately ignoring customer emails is a trend I’ve seen too often. In my case with Lamy, Online Pen and others. I guess you might get an answer if you’re lucky and get an employee who’ll follow it up. According to my experience once an employees forwards information to other employees and more than one person is involved no one takes responsibility and it doesn’t get dealt with…

I’m not sure the move to social media is too useful either. I think you are more likely to get an answer there, but it will be an acknowledgement of your interaction more than dealing with your question or statement. If I think about the posts I see from some companies (not stationery companies, luckily) they definitely give the impression of not thinking too highly of their customers and the same theme is repeating again and again: trying to force customer interaction by asking simple questions without then actually reacting properly to the replies.

Matthias don’t…this sharpener produces a long cone of wood and but the exposed lead is surprisingly short …AND sharpens all my pencils off centre – just like Sean’s pic.

Bogdan, it’s really great value for money. I have discovered some other, similar ‘dust-free’ erasers from other brands that are great, too. I thought that the Faber-Castell is more often available in shops than other dust-free erasers, what you wrote seems to confirm that, too.

You can actually buy pre-chewed pencils (“so you don’t have to”), so weathered pencils might become fashionable 8^) I get the feeling that all those hipsters made pencils more fashionable already..

Hmm, that pencil point from your link is so nice. I might put that Mitsubishi sharpener on my ‘Wanted’ list….

re: sharpener — I really have no idea, but the cone looks similar to the results I got from the Mitsubishi KH-20 sharpener:

http://blackwingpages.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/dscf17411.jpg?w=630&h=354

There may be another cultural-related aspect. In Germany, many people assume that high-quality products must be expensive. While this may be understandable to a certain extent, the reverse may not – quite a few are reluctant to buy good items because of their comparatively low price which let them doubt the quality.

And of course there is the snob effect which may not be unwelcome to the manufacturers sometimes …

I agree, this might be deliberate, maybe to make these pens Veblen goods… Regarding the Pelikan pen, it has a gold nib and the price of gold went up , plus there some manual work involved, so some increase might be naturally occurring. Regarding Graf von Faber-Castell, I assume they want to make them really high-end. Their “Tableau” for example has been made moderately more complicated by adding metal ends, but at the same time the price has rocketed.

As far as luxury stationery is concerned I wouldn’t be surprised if the prices have deliberately been risen since the sales of many luxury items went up.

I’m still looking for my perfect nib. Two options I see at the moment:
- getting one of my nibs adjusted by a nibmeister
- or hoping that some vintage fountain pen nibs can give me the flex I want.

And thank you for the interrobang

Kiwi-d, I even have second one now – one at home, one in the office.

Sean, it’s a great sharpener, my most used sharpener in the last three years.

John, that’s a good change to get the sharpener for a still reasonable price. Thanks for the link.

Kevin, you are right, I should have mentioned the rubber coated grippers. I probably didn’t because I don’t like sharpeners that leave a mark and can’t accept getting my pencil disfigured in such a way (trying to convince myself these marks will improve the grip didn’t work either).
As far as I can tell, both my 0635′s have an angle of 17.5° (see this list), but I don’t have proper tools to check. I don’t know what angle the Carl is supposed to have, but I hope they didn’t change the mechanism in the 0635, not that it’s now producing the same point as the 0668. Next time I’ll be in Shanghai I’ll try to get one for you if they are still in supermarkets, so that you can compare it to yours.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Brand-Delistar-Cute-Manual-Hand-Rotating-Desk-Plastic-Pencil-Sharpener-Black-/280976542399?_trksid=p2047675.m2109&_trkparms=aid%3D555003%26algo%3DPW.CAT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D142%26meid%3D4970504290474781890%26pid%3D100010%26prg%3D1076%26rk%3D3%26sd%3D170962631693%26

Great poster!

Scratchy office pencils – they are hell with a lead inside
or
Looking sharp is easy when you haven’t done any work (read that one somewhere)
or
Work – it’s what pays for your stationery collection (modification of one I read in the past)

…with works by Sue Blackwell and Justine Smith.

Kevin, those sharpeners I stored in a similar way to the way you stored yours seem fine …but the weather isn’t the same where you and I live and in my case the sharpeners are from another brand and might have a different composition. My surprise came because I have very old magnesium sharpeners that look perfectly fine, so I just didn’t expect these fairly new magnesium sharpeners to look like that already…

John, thanks for the link. Oh, the shop you link to even ships to the UK – nice. Is this sharpener good? So far I wasn’t too lucky when it comes to sharpeners from KUM.

Phil, thanks for this explanation. A quick look on the web seems to suggest that it’s possible to get rid of magnesium oxide with heat, but I guess that’s not something I should try at home ;^)

Most mag sharpeners I’ve ever had looked pretty beaten up when I got them, unless they came in an individual package (rare I suppose). It’s more a matter of “wear” than the nice patina the brass sharpeners get.

I have another magnesium sharpener, stored in my pencil case, that is perfectly fine, so I thought it might have been the environment more than the age of the two pictured sharpeners.
Are your sharpeners just dull or is the surface different, too. Mine have a sandpaper-like surface now.

I’ve had good luck cleaning mag sharpeners with a baking sode paste, but it doesn’t get them shiny again. It does get brass looking wonderful though, without the use of excessive cleaners.

There was actually much more to show, but my understanding is that I cannot show too many photos in relation to the text without possibly breaking copyright. Maybe it will be acceptable to show more photos in a comment….

Marcus, it’s actually not an old sharpener, at least not the one I got. Good to hear that yours is still working well.

In the blog post I mentioned the Uni Mitsubishi Arterase Color Vermilion. Today I had a very strange experience when labelling a notebook with this pencil. The Vermillion started to scratch the surface of the notebook. When I examined the pencil I noticed that only one area of the lead was scratchy. I then started scratching that part of the lead until I got a tiny, hard fragment out. My assumption is that the fragment was in the lead all the time. The fact that I store my pencils point up makes it unlikely that the point picked the fragment up in my pencil holder.

I wonder whether anyone else had a similar experience with this pencil…

Katherine, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t find any instructions, so I had a go and luckily it worked out, but I cannot remember how I did it. I somehow made a loop and then put the second band through that loop.

Claire, it’s framed an on the wall. The signature is under a print of his Scrooge McDuck pencil drawing. It was part of a calendar with his oil painting, but I took the signed sheet out and got it framed.

Kevin, I’m not sure what pencil it was, but it looks as if the point wasn’t round, so I wonder whether the pencil was sharpened with a pen knife.

Marco, I share your disappointment. I had a subscription to the German “LTB” for a while, delivered to the UK, to compensate for my disappointment. The LTB is basically full of stories taken form the Italian Topolino magazine, with maybe one story each issue from Denmark, e.g. by Massimo Fecchi. Last year Lexikaliker mentioned the LTB (Lustiges Taschenbuch) and a story by Guido Martina/Massimo De Vita in a blog post.
In the UK there were Disney comics until the late 1980s / early 1990s. There were some comics after 2000, but they were non Donald/Mickey, e.g. Witch. About two years ago there was the Literature Classics series in the UK with Donald/Mickey comics, but you only got around 60 pages for £5, which is very expensive compared to the continent, so I didn’t buy any.

Shangching, keeping the price in mind this pen is one of those amazing pens you mention, but I am not sure mine will see a lot of use, just because if have better fountain pens I’d prefer to use.

Plumbum, I prefer wet nibs, too, but somehow, whenever I fill in a form or sign a paper with a wet nib at work and hand it so someone they will magically manage to grab the paper exactly where I just wrote (not dried yet) and will make a mess….

Kevin, yes, you are right. The pen’s body has “Berol® by Paper♥♥Mate” printed on it.

Kim, I didn’t see your Berol review or I would have probably linked to it. A question for you, as I only have one of these pens. Mine has a kind of fibre squeezed between the nib and the black plastic. I assume it is there to help ink flow, but I don’t remember seeing this in other fountain pens. Does your Berol have this fibre/string, too?

Ana, thanks for this information. Good to know this works. After hearing about the bad experience some had with the UK based retailers of Atoma notebooks, it’s good to know you can get them directly from Belgium…

Michelle, Atoma and Staples paper is interchangeable, but my Atoma paper sheets are about 1.6 cm wider than my Staples paper sheets.

I stumbled upon your website googling Atoma/Arc search terms, I’ve used the Atoma and loved it, but I’m curious, does Staples’ paper fit into the Atoma rings or vice versa? They look like they’d fit, and they have the same number of mushroom-shaped holes so you’d think…

Michelle

Here is a link to it:
Rotring 600

Gunther, I hope you can find the Snowman in better quality. The youtube video doesn’t do the drawings justice.

Palimpsest, congratulations to your blog, too.

Julie (O-kami), to be honest, the labelled pencils don’t look too exciting, as far as i can tell from photos each letter is made up of dots, a letter is probably seven dots high and 5 dots wide. Still, would have been nice…

Kevin, I hope they keep making their pencils for many years to come. My subjective impression is that they don’t have a very big market share. I wonder whether that is down to the quality you mentioned.

The sharpener is also still available, now platinum plated, too. The price for the sharpener alone is £75 (~ $120) in the UK.

You might find these links useful:
http://contrapuntalism.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/graf-von-faber-castell/
http://contrapuntalism.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/graf-von-faber-castell-2/

Thank you for all of the hours of enjoyment I get out of reading your blog! And thanks to not only you but all of those that take the time to review and and show us pencils from around the world.

I haven’t heard of “The Snowman” before and will look at it.

Regarding Eisen: I forgot to mention that I have even phoned them, asked for a list of suppliers and left my contact details but to no avail. Anyway, why bother? There is Möbius+Ruppert

The museum was smaller than I expected. The exhibition area is smaller than the rest of the building (video room, shop, food area). I got the impression that some of their exhibitions are changing. Keswick attracts tourists anyway, so this might entice them to visit the museum when they come again.

There is a famous book & animation in the UK, called “The Snowman“, which has been drawn using Cumberland products. I don’t think it is well known in Germany. The snowman is of course featured in the museum. You can also see it being mention on the mural. After 30 years there will be a new version this Christmas, but I doubt the sequel has been drawn with real pencils…

Regarding Eisen, I emailed info@eisen-spitzer.com . Last time it took three months to get an answer, but I did get one eventually. Another address I used in the past is eisen@eisen-spitzer.com .
In the UK their products are available at WH Smith. In Germany I have seen Eisen products in Müller.

The photos from the Cumberland pencil museum are exciting – thank you for sharing your impressions.

How did you manage to get a reply from Eisen? Have you just emailed them? I have contacted them several times via email and asked where to buy their products but haven’t got a reply.

John, a brass version would be nice! The improvement I would like to see is a version that produces a less unsightly lead where graphite and wood meet (produced after the first step). Maybe my sharpener is just misaligned and others KUM Long Point’s sharpen ‘nicer’.

Kevin, I even think the point from the Long Point doesn’t break as easily as the point created by most other sharpeners.

Alberto, last time I used the sharpener I looked at the living hinge and thought to myself I hope it lasts. Not nice to hear that it doesn’t…

John, we should start a petition asking for a brass version ;^) but I guess it would be too expensive… 8^(

I wish KUM would make a metal version of this sharpener. A brass cast of the inset sharpener (the grey plastic part) would be an AMAZING sharpener!

I never watched The Killing, but plan to watch it this time. I heard it’s supposed to be good. Now I’ll have to pay attention to the knitwear, too 8^)

I did spot a Noris in another Danish TV series (Borgen, was on BBC Four, too), but the Noris was actually shown in a scene when the previous Prime Minister of Denmark was in London. I took a screen shot at the time, but didn’t have a chance yet to show it. I might show it when I show the Noris in Fawlty Towers.

Other Danish TV series (Those Who Kill, The Bridge) didn’t yield any exciting pencil results so far.

Anyway, The Killing (Forbrydelsen) III starts this Saturday on BBC Four. I hope that Sarah Lund can find the time to use a Staedtler in between changes of knitwear.

Kevin, I’ve got to say that I haven’t really used the very soft Castell 9000 pencils yet as I normally use them for writing, so 2B is the softest I tend to use, but I will certainly try the soft ones out. Thanks for your explanation.

Michael, do you use a knife because you want to create a special shape for sketching?

Kevin, I don’t think I have seen any “Great Britain” traditions stamped on the red stripe, I’ll keep my eyes open though, thanks for this information.

Constantin, thanks for letting us know about this link. Compared to other industries it feels more difficult to find any information about the pencil industry. I don’t believe that it is more secretive, but there are probably, unfortunately not enough people interested, compare to, let’s say the music or mobile phone industry…

Dimitris, I’m glad you liked this blog post. The Wolff pencils are now made in Indonesia. I don’t believe their roots are linked to the old Wolff pencils, but think of it as a marketing exercise. There are many old famous brand names being used again with varying degrees of connection to the original company behind it. In the case of Wolff, there’s not much of an exciting connection.
About your pencil paste, do you then want to heat it in a kiln? Or do you have a more artistic use in mind, e.g. for colouring large areas of a paper as part of a picture?

On another note. I would like to make my own “pencil paste” any home made recipes, for a Carbon mix?

Was “Blattwerk Trends” the name of the shop? This name can be found when searching with Google for a German retailer but neither the show nor the website seem to exist any longer. Yes, maybe Manufactum may play a role.

Thank you for showing these great notebooks and for telling about the IBS shop!

John, I also always get an unsightly look where the burr last made contact with the pencil… 8^( Great that you like this pencil.

Bart, I actually do like the name, but I’m neither a native English speaker nor am I too familiar with the Dr. Seuss stories, so I’ll have different associations with certain names. I remember when Sega’s Dreamcast came out people complained about the name, but I didn’t “get it”.

Gunther, I just assumed Staedtler sharpens the Wopex like any other pencil. Thanks for the explanation with the rotating knives. I wonder whether this is because the traditional “sanding down” takes too long with the Wopex or whether their abrasive surface isn’t quite abrasive enough for this tough pencil.

In the end the edges on the lead, when sharpened with a knife, are not too different from the ones the presharpened Wopex has.

Regarding the difficulty of sharpening a Wopex and a normal pencil: it’s difficult to say, but maybe the Wopex is easier to deal with. If you use a sharp knife and if you are using a cedar wood pencil it’s very easy to remove too much wood with one cut. The Wopex material is much harder, so you remove a much thinner slice of material.
I wonder when the Wopex material will be available for use outside the pencil industry. It seems to be a good replacement for plastic or wood, so things like handles of knives, tools, etc, could be made from it. It wouldn’t be the first time a pencil manufacturer would diversify into an area quite different to stationery (Berolzheimer – fire logs).

thanks,

Marek

Shangching, their writing pencils are definitely not bad. It’s a shame they are so difficult to find… I have a few of their cheap mechanical pencils, but haven’t tried any of their other products yet, like ink.

John, I’m happy you like it.

Kevin, the Deli 0635 is the sharpener I use most often, it’s great.
I do have a few minervas here on my desk (The University where I work is selling them, next to no name pencils, in some of it’s food outlets).
A description of the edelweiss if you know the minerva: The edelweiss is quite a bit thinner than the minerva. The paint of the edelweiss is darker, less orange-red. Some of the minervas I have here with me have a very yellow-coloured wood, some use a more red wood, so I won’t comment further on that as there seems to be a lot of deviation. A (very) quick lead comparison made me think that the edelweiss is a much smoother pencil.

Claire, I really like the fact that it looks a bit like the Empire State Building, but especially in gold it is a bit on the bling side…

Selic, I assumed he is at as popular in Korea as he is abroad. I am surprised to hear it’s not like that.

By the way: A commenter at “Atoma Notebook” wrote that the Rollabind punches are compatible to the Atoma system so maybe these are a cheaper alternative.

Gunther, I really like them and hope you won’t regret giving in to the temptation either. I wish they’d be easily available across Europe… The Staples ones have nicer paper, but I really dislike how they have a “forced border” printed on them and the bigger disc size makes them worse, too, IMHO. Please let me know what you think of the Atoma notebooks.

This is fun.Popular singer Psy I just feel like a lot more popular in the United States or in other countries than in Korea.

Pencil Review and fun read.

Robert, I agree with the problem with the play. If I write in my small notebook lower-case characters tend to be around 1mm tall and play adds something an issue to be kept in mind in this case.

Michael, thanks for trying it at low angles and letting us know. It’s really not a bad pencil. It’s certainly great that they made this happen, but even they I admire the thoughts that went into it I am slightly disappointed with the reality – but it’s nevertheless a nice mechanical pencil, even more so if it works for you.

bard, thanks for your post. I am glad to hear others have the same issue, because there are so many voices that try to convince that the issues I mentioned are non-existent.

Kosmas, not for me. Might be my Kuru Toga, I only have one so cannot compare, the angle or the pressure I use or other factors.

Memm, is it not possible to drill a hole in the eraser and then put the drill in reverse gear with the drill bit still in the eraser…if that makes any sense.

“O.K., yes. That was fun. Now, somebody come and clean this all up. Schnell! Schnell!

Your headlines are fantastic, I’d buy any newspaper with these headlines on!

Count von Count can teach bankers financial maths to help with high risk financial products while our favourite Count erases the debt….

About him becoming King – he could rule from Castle Neuschwanstein and prove his point ( http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/family/pencil-boss-out-to-prove-a-point-835331 ) again, this time from the castle where the pencils would have to survive a bigger fall.
In his favour if he wants to become King of Bavaria: he’s from Fanconia and after Bavaria’s occupation of Franconia and their alliance with Napoleon Bavaria made Franconia part of their kingdom (1803) before the Kingdom of Bavaria’s dissolution (1918).

Another problem on the way to regency, related to the Kingdom of Bavaria’s dissolution, is that he’s actually not a count (even though I like to call him “our favourite count”). Here’s an explanation why: http://www.economist.com/blogs/theinbox/2007/03/face_value

I can see the headlines: “Pencil-Makers Solve Eurozone Crisis.” “How the Count Erased the Debt.” Or, “Castells Not Made of Sand!”

I wonder if at one point he could get a promotion, and become “King Faber-Castell.”

Shangching, Nuremberg is really nice!

Sean and John, the shop was really great, but they could have improved it by offering more of the more exotic products. Most of the items are available in normal shops, but it’s still nice to have it all in one place.

On a different note, I noticed that our local Waitrose got rid of their Faber-Castell pencils and that they are now selling Staedtler Noris pencils instead. They only have one type of branded pencil anyway, sold in a blister pack between lots of Japanese ball point pens – and I doubt that they sell a lot pencils …but it’s still interesting to see that Staedtler seems to get back into supermarkets after what feels like having lost a lot of shelf space in supermarkets in the last years.

Kevin, these pencil holders are really rather unusual… I think I prefer more normal ones…

Audrey, Meriful is kind of in the middle of FuZhou road, on the same side as the Raffles City shopping centre, but much closer to the book stores. The address is probably FuZhou Road No. 622.

DaveG, that sounds quite exciting. Are they fairly new in Switzerland or have they been around for a long time? Also, does it say where they are made? I am wondering whether they are made in their Stockport factory near Manchester…

Sean, I wanted them for quite a while, but I never saw affordable ones and was happy to finally find two reasonably priced disc-bound notebooks. I assume Staples is selling their Arc System in the USA, but I am not sure how prominent they display the Arc system. There are some nice leather notebooks, too.

Gunther, it could be that the patent could not be extended – I am not sure. A few months ago the Economist had an interesting article describing how companies extend patents forever, but I doubt the mechanism described in that article can be applied to the disc-binding system… So you are probably right. The person I contacted at ISB was very friendly, but I doubt they make any money, so unless they want to sell these items to promote their school there is a chance they will stop shipping outside Belgium free of charge. I, too, have reservations towards Manufactum, so I haven’t ordered from them in quite a while, but many of the products they sell are just so nice and difficult to get… If their ridiculous £/€ exchange rate improves I might order again from them.

The commonest paper is lined like your left hand binder but plain and squared are also available.

Sizes from A7 to A4 oversize.

Shangching, the price is quite good for a toy, but I’ll certainly use mine as an eraser, not as a toy – but I guess it will survive for a long time as I have a few erasers I like to alternate between.

Claire, good to know that it doesn’t seem suitable for big(ger) jobs. My mainproblem with it will probably be that precise erasing is difficult, unless you want to use the duck’s beak – which would probably be used up pretty soon.

Kevin, I bought quite a few other erasers together with the Sakura, so I’ve got to say that I haven’t tried it out yet…. I just don’t seem to use erasers often enough, compared with the number of erasers I’ve got lying around – and in the end I alsways tend to go back to the same three erasers anyway…

Good prices, but beware the cost of cheap…

I thought perhaps I’d just had a bad experience the first time, and ordered again several months later. No luck; I had almost as bad an experience the second time around.

Sean, they do look a bit like ferrets… The weather was really nice (for a change) so we went there. It’s really great and I am sure we’ll go there again…

Kevin, it’s not too expensive for UK standards – I think. Metal or wooden pencil holders will often cost £10 – £20 or more. With Saponite being a more unusual material the price is not too shocking. When I first came to the UK I thought everything was expensive, with a few exceptions, but I got used to it by now….
Hmm, an amber pencil holder, sounds like an idea for a new product line: the Graf von Faber-Castell pencil holder of the year.
And now a link: The ten weirdest pencil holders.

Great photos!

Gunther: Thanks for the information. I thought the foam was a defect, but now it makes sense. What about Wopex? Have you noticed bubbles in Wopex? I don’t recall seeing any from the few times I used it. Do you think Wopex was also gassed? From your description the Thoreau’s set is a disappointment indeed, if only the quality matches the design!

Kevin: Yes, regular users really expect so little from pencils – I can confirm this. However, if they are given the opportunity to try high-quality pencils and to compare them to cheap ones quite a few are very impressed. I had a few discussions in which people were very surprised about the quality a good pencil can offer.

Claire: The foamy structure is by intention – during the extrusion of the plastic is gassed to make it lighter and easier to sharpen; besides that, it saves material.

Sean, I second your thoughts – it’s a pity to see the culture of pencils (as I would like to name it) being damaged.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Henry David Thoreau’s death the Swiss publisher Diogenes has issued a metal tin with six pencils which are disappointing in every regard. Celebrating a pencil maker with low-end pencils? Almost unbelievable (at least to me).

Shangching, I did like most of the eco pencils made of rolled paper, but except the Wopex all extruded pencils were a disappointment so far.

Kevin, that’s a good point, they are really anti-eco. Sometimes I see ball point pens that were left by their owners. It’s not very often that I see pencils being left somewhere, but when I found that red recycled CD case pencil from the previous blog post it was unsharpened – which probably means that the owner tried it out, was extremely disappointed and left it. I hope these kind of pencils don’t put people off real pencils.

Claire, The fingers can flex, even individually (I think). The jaw and head can move. The robot can even cry, but it a very comic kind of way (which reminded me of the piano scene in Monty Python’s ‘Salad Days’). My guess would be that the man on the left decides which preprogrammed routine (with synced sound and programmed movements(including those tears)) to initiate. Was there any writing on the recycled pencils you saw?

Sean, what you wrote does sound sad and true the same time – all that’s left of the pencil is a vague concept and a cartoon version of what it once was … something that looks like a pencil in popping colours, but that doesn’t do the job 8^(

Thanks for the pics, and for trying out the pencils.

Coincidentally today I came across an array of these in a local shop. They came in several colors so at distance they look nice. But up close, just like the last picture, the surface looks kind of foamy. The casing is unyieldingly hard, not nice to touch. To me these CD case pencils are quite undesirable. No need to mention, I didn’t buy any.

Stephen, Wopexen, hmm.. I wonder whether Staedtler has an official answer to the question what the plural of Wopex is….
About the different varieties. There were many colours available in the “Staedtler Welt” shop in Nuremberg (“Wopex Trendlinien”). I was promised to get updated if there are new developments, but somehow that didn’t work out and they forgot. My guess would be that Staedtler sees the Wopex as product that can be sold in many colours to increase sales. They don’t seem to want to establish a unique look for the brand at this time – unlike with the Noris or the Mars Lumograph.
If the eraser caps were added in response to a request of a large retailer there might be a chance that they disappear, now that there is the eraser-tipped version shown in Lexikaliker’s blog….
Since the Wopex is very new they might also just like to experiment to see which markets like what version of this product most…

Kevin, I hope so. A while ago Staedtler advertised the Wopex in HongKong. Since parts of Asia and Oceania are sometimes seen as one region for marketing purposes I guess that’s good news for Australia. Maybe Australia will even get their own version to fit local/regional taste… If there are any unusual Wopex sightings please tell…

So many varieties! I would imagine that Staedtler would be concerned about introducing too many product versions, diminishing the brand identity, and confusing consumers.

Some while ago, I was told by Staedtler Canada that the eraser caps on the green North American version were added in response to a request of a large retailer.

Shangching, what a shame that the eraser topper breaks easily. Would you say the quality of the Staedtler eraser topper is worse than the quality of the similar looking colourful eraser toppers from other companies – or do others break easily, too?

Gunther, yes, my yellow Wopex (If that is the plural, I don’t think the plural should be Wopeces) are slightly smother, too. I like the silver print on the standard Wopex. The black print on the yellow Wopex is not as good as the black print on the standard Wopex. I wonder whether this is to save money or because of the different surface.
Do you know what the “I” is supposed to mean or indicate? I assume it is a Roman numeral, not a Latin letter.

Thank you for your kind comments.

As Koralatov said, the Noris is cheaper than the Lumograph. Compared to the Tradition: some shops charge more for the Noris, some more for the Tradition, but usually you don ‘t see both in the same shop. Some shops sell one Noris as part of a blister pack for less than 30p, e.g. Tesco.

I have tried to review. Thank you.

http://selic.pe.kr/1168220981

It was remiss of me not to provide the English translation of the above. The english (machine) translations are provided through global.rakuten.com, and when there, simply type the search term A5PR and you will see several results including the ATN store, which is the cheapest. The link is http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/atn/item/a5pr/. On this page you will also see yet another version of the Carl Angel-5 Premium called the Carl Angel-5 Royal which is the same sharpener with 2 point settings – for a few bucks more.

Further info on the premium model:

I have the Blue model which is finished in a subtle but shimmering deep, deep, blue metallic – looks beautiful under the right lighting.

Claire, according to Rakuten the Carl Decade-100 is still sold in Japan and indeed I received an email from Pencils.jp that they are back in stock with them. The DE-100 on Rakuten is priced between Y1850-2200 whereas the CP-100 I saw priced at Y1260 or thereabouts, so it seems there are differences other than the color. I will be keen to hear from you about the CP-100.

Back to the sharpeners, I’ve been using hand sharpeners before receiving a (used) KW-trio 305 rotatory sharpener from a friend. It produces a charming long concave point (22mm with 7-8mm graphite) but unfortunately it’s not a desirable sharpener: the bite mark is unbearable and is dangerous to use: either it’s because my unit is old or because it’s a defective product, the top front section that one pulls out to sharpen can spring back suddenly any time during sharpening (auto-stop! joking). But now I’ve seen the long point, can’t un-see it, the normal point handsharpeners make has become so unsightful that I picked up knife sharpening. In the mean time, a Carl CP100 is in the mail, hope I don’t need to wave the knife any more!

AND by the way, the test pencils were previously unsharpened Venus Velvet 3557′s.

Hi, Koralatov – I can see I will have to buy a digital camera, but in the meantime I would best describe the point difference as follows:

The Carl Angel-5 produces a cone of 22.5mm total including a long sharp graphite section.
The Premium Carl produces a cone of 19.5mm total length – still long by manual sharpener standards with a slightly shorter exposed graphite section.

and a Mitsubish KH-20 produces a cone length of 23mm BUT with a ridiculously short exposed graphite section – only half the length of the CA-5. This sharpener also sharpens centered leads “off center”.

Hope this helps.

Any chance of some side-by-side comparisons of the points produced by both?

The Noris was one of two common pencils I saw in school; the other was the Bic Matic mechanical pencil. I hadn’t seen the eraser-capped version at all until a couple of years ago, but now see them quite frequently. As far as I know, the eraser-capped version only comes in HB.

For those of us in locations where the Noris and tradition are not sold – at retail, are they priced less than the Lumograph, or given less prominence in retail displays? They both seem to be unofficial “second tier” pencils, yet never called so.

Claire: In Germany both numbers and letters were common to indicate the hardness in Germany, and I haven’t found any regularity in their use yet. – By the way, the Noris 278, about 100 years old, has only a number.

Have the made-in-Germany Noris’ always come with hardness in both letter and number? I thought the number system is an American thing (I panicked briefly the first time I was told to use a ‘Number 2 pencil’ for ‘scantron’), if so, then why would a pencil not sold in US have number printed on it? Norica also comes with number while Wopex doesn’t, I wonder if one can rationalize this.

Rivaled only by the welcoming aroma found in a mom-and-pop bakery on some chilly Saturday morning.

Stationery Traffic, about plasticisers – they have been a topic in Germany on and off, but (I think) they have been big in the media again, one or two years ago. Lexikaliker would probably know more about this. I wish there was a better choice of erasers in shops here. Some small shops are not bad – and I have seen some nice erasers and sharpeners in chain stores like WH Smith, too, but usually you only get no name stuff…. 8^(

John, ‘Saunders USA’ seems to be the official distributor for North America… I think Läufer was bought by a French company which belongs to BIC, so even without ‘Saunders USA’, there’s a slim chance their products are available in other countries as well.

Nice erasers BTW – I doubt they’ll be in my shops any time soon, though.

Here’s another photo (not great, like most camera-phone shots) where the shape is easier to recognise:

Matthias: Thanks for pointing out the ads, they are delightful. Though I admit I didn’t understand a word of the Switzerland one :p For the German one, towards the end there was a clip or two showing some destructive attempts on the pen which the pen survived. Wonder how the young viewers reacted to that!

Henrik, does the Lamy 2000 have a “real hooded nib” or is it some other form of hooded nib?

Claire, this is not an answer to your question, but Youtube has Pelikan ads from the 1960s where ink cartridges are being mentioned (“In the space age you should write with cartridge fountain pens”). The Pelikano itself was introduced in 1960. As far as I know ink cartridges were fairly new at that time, but I am not sure when exactly they first came out. The Pelikano was and is quite popular, so at least in West Germany this pen must have resulted in cartridges becoming widely used (I assume in Austria and Switzerland, too, but I am not sure).

A quick Internet search showed patents filed in China for breathing-free pens dating 1992, 1996 and 2000+. I wonder if there were already such pens around when I was at school, we just weren’t allowed to use them, or there just weren’t any (except for imported) until much later.

Henrik: This shows my ignorance. Before your comment I didn’t know hooded nibs aren’t popular. Back home they are (or were) the norm. Please educate me, were they once popular before, or is it a Chinese thing to start with?

The brush-eraser combo looks very interesting, though the brush looks quite hard. Like Matthias, I prefer erasers that don’t shed to start with.

Thanks for the link to the eraser and cleaning brush. I don’t know why I thought it was made in a prison. I might have mixed it up with some other stationery I saw somewhere else.

Kevin, if my erasers are too dirty I sometimes use them on a clean paper or on another surface to remove the dirty areas. The curved design of this eraser is a problem as it will make precise erasing more difficult. Sketching under a tree sounds like a very nice thing to do…

Gunther, I should look for this eraser/brush combination. I only know Staedtler’s, and I think you once showed one that has been assembled in a prison. I am not sure I remember the details, maybe that was a brush without an eraser. The performance of the eraser isn’t great. I’ve seen better, but I’ve definitely also seen worse. If it was just an eraser I wouldn’t get too excited, my favourites are still “dust free” erasers, but as a sharpener/eraser combo it’s quite good, and the sharpener is better than some of my other KUM sharpeners.

According to the red lid the Correc-Combi is made in Germany. I assume this applies to both, the sharpener and the eraser, but I cannot be 100% sure.

Emilio, I bought this ink from an American eBay Seller.

Shanching, I was looking for the Carrefour notepads in different Chinese Carrfours, but was not successful so far. I also haven’t seen these Oxford notepads in any other shops yet – only online. I hope you’ll find a good alternative. Is there a specific reason why you are looking for an alternative?

Sean, it is a very nice ink, but I haven’t noticed any advantage over royal blue ink by other manufacturers.

Claire, I do think these manufacturers pick orange to look like a Rhodia notepad and so that the customer knows that this is supposed to replace a Rhodia notepad. If they were blue I’d think it’s because they are French (Allez les Bleus) or if they were Dutch (Oranje boven) I’d understand, too, but like this I assume they just copy Rhodia.
Oxford is very common in the UK. It hasn’t been that common in Germany in the past, but like another French stationery brand, Maped, is has become much more common in recent years. Their products are available in North America, too, even though the brand name used might be different: OfficeSupplyGeek has reviewed one of their notebooks.

Claire, do you use lead holders for a specific reason, i.e. for something wood cased pencils wouldn’t do as good? Apple Green is a limited colour. I think I’ve heard them being called “summer colours”, too. Last year’s colour was orange, and in a previous year the colour was lime green. Lime green Safaris do sometimes sell for a lot of money on eBay. I once lost mine (I suspect someone took it from my desk), but luckily found a shop that still had some in stock. I really think the three “summer colours” I know are beautiful colours – and I very much believe that I am not influenced at all by the fact that they are limited editions and that I would say the same if these colours were not part of a limited edition series.

I just noticed the Apple Green is in fact a 2012 limited edition! Now that Lamy Safari has been around for so long, has there been limited editions before?

The Oxford Pad can definitely pass as Rhodia, if one does not look carefully, and it looks like it holds fountain pen ink quite well too. Good find!

Henrik, I had to look the Wing Sun up, the nib section looks very nice! I hope you like these fountain pens. As far as I know you are right about the National Pencil Day in the USA.
I’ve got a question for you about Danish pencils. A while ago I saw a Stadtler Noris in the first episode of Borgen, but now I saw a pencil I don’t know – in the third episode of Broen. I think this part of the episode took place in Sweden, not in Denmark, but I thought you might still know this pencil: It does remind me of a W.H. Smith or a Ticonderoga Microban pencil. Does the pattern of the text on the side of the pencil look familiar to you? I suspect it might be a pencil from an art set, but I think there’s a small chance that it’s a common pencil from a common Scandinavian department or chain store.

I think/hope your question is dry humour….http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_mileage_between_Sydney_and_Santiago – 11,375km. I was illustrating the point of “the tyranny of distance” Australians suffer. Of course the tyranny of distance is hardly a factor in the European context.

I do like the ferry, even though the trip takes a bit more than a day – but if you fly you need to get to the train station, wait, fly, wait again for the second plane (as direct flights are usually much more expensive), fly, wait, train again, then car, and if anything goes wrong you miss the connection.
Ferry is easier, but slightly more expensive: 200km relaxed driving, sleeping on the ferry, another 650km of relaxed driving, finished. Plus you can fill up the boot of the car with stuff that is cheaper or you cannot get in the other country.

You cannot travel by ferry to Chile, can you?

Claire, these are Midori traveler’s notebooks, they are really that expensive.

Many (most?) FC erasers are made in Malaysia and as far as I can tell they are actually the same erasers, just in a different sleeve. I only have plasticy mechanical pencils from Rotring, so I cannot really comment on the quality difference between Redcircle and Rotring.

About the pencil prices, if you buy them in bulk in Europe they are cheap, too. My guess is that the individual store just has a smaller profit margin on the pencil. Maybe the distributor sells them cheaper, too. The fact that the bulk price in Europe is cheap shows that the price it sells for in China should be achievable elsewhere, too, e.g. if a big chain wants to sell them near cost price.

A slightly different matter, stationery from FC (produced in Asia, though) is so cheap in China, as far as I can tell consumers in China pay less than retailers in Europe. I am however not sure how many more years this is sustainable.

Clip and tape are mine, but my wife bought the Panda stickers in Meriful 8^)

Kevin,sticky price tags are very annoying, I wonder whether they even lose business because they want to save a few pence on the price tags.

I don’t really know what smell you are referring to, but I will pay attention next time I visit an Art Shop.

There’s something missing about all these modern stores though, and that is…got it…it’s the smell of an old style Art Shop, irresistible. It’s the same smell all over the world, at least where I’ve been anyway. It’s like an aphrodisiac to me and the modern clinical store just can’t beat them.

The A6 leather-cover notebook on the lower right corner has the number 438 on it. Is that … the price?!

How do the price of Faber-Castell erasers compare to Europe (can’t tell the brand for those other erasers you purchased)? What about the price and quality of the Redcircle vs Rotring?

In China one can easily get Noris for 1/2 and Mars Lumograph 100 for 1/3 the Canadian price, yet the Canadian price seems comparable with the German price (at least for the handful of shops I visited). So I wonder where the price advantage comes from. I mean, it’s understandable if these items are made in Asia, but I thought at least Lumograph 100 would be imported from Germany, shouldn’t they cost more?

The W-clip, floral paper tape and panda are unexpected. hehe

ExcaliburZ, the VAT in Europe is similar. There is a rule that says it has to be between 15% and 27% (Germany & Netherlands: 19%, UK & Austria: 20%, Hungary: 27%). Taobao is quite convenient to use. Last time I ordered something from Taobao I just went to the corner shop and paid at a machine, in big cities there’s a great network for accepting payments!

Claire, the funny thing is that many Chinese things are cheaper in Europe than in China (e.g. card readers), at least in shops (not TaoBao). The first time I went to China the DVD shops were already everywhere, but there aren’t many left now. I know the kind of shop you are talking about and in Shanghai there are fewer now, but there’s one thing I really like about them: I recent years they started selling board games 8^) unfortunately many are bad copies, but you can also find good copies or genuine board games there.

Matthias:
My friend got me some ‘normal’ pencils but she only buys ‘cute’ things herself, so most likely she was comparing cute Korean stationery to cute Chinese stationery, which apparently costs an arm and a leg in comparison.

About stationery getting more expensive, I’ve been away for about 10 years so I don’t have a first hand impression, but given the crazy inflation in recent years (or CPI, I think they call it) it’s bound to happen.

When I was in school, there were streets and markets of stationery (and girly things, cartoon stickers & posters, postcards etc), things were affordable, in early 90s children with 5RMB per week pocket money could buy a lot. Before year 2000 these shops started being taken over by DVD/CD shops. Now these markets are completely gone. I think what happened is: the profit margin for these stores are so thin that they can’t afford the rent, and the city has taken the land for other purposes. The few surviving ones that moved to shopping malls have to enlarge their profit margin to cover the cost, but as a result their target customers can’t afford them any more…

Paper is not really my forte but imported paper seems to be more expensive. I bought a Rhodia No. 18 (A4 size) pad for W14,000 (£7.70) and a Paul Smith Rhodia No. 16 (A6 size) for W7500 (£4.15). However, this was an expensive shop, and I just wanted the paper. I’m quite sure they can be had for much cheaper from a Korean Internet site.

Usually, I use Korean paper. it is much cheaper and good quality. I can usually pick up a decent spiral bound A4 size pad for around £1 – 2. There are many other interesting smaller pads for around 50p.

Stephen, I haven’t heard of that. Thanks for sharing. I wonder whether the Lamy 2000 is still in the MoMA. I couldn’t find it on their web site, but it used to be in the museum.

Claire, is even “normal” stationery is expensive there, not only “cute” stationery? In recent years all the cute and girly things I saw in shopping centres in China were quite expensive, much more expensive than they used to be. About the status of Germany/Europe/the West, there seem to be mixed messages in mangas and animes. I remember that they are often associated with being good (e.g. Cats’ Eye), but also sometimes with being cool/arrogant (e.g. Neon Genesis Evangelion) or even as being uninteresting and worse than Japan (I think that was in Video Girl Ai, but I am not sure, if not in VGA then in something similar).

Kevin, my impression, but I might be very wrong here, is that young couples go there and the boys buy these things for the girls to “show their love for them” …but that’s my guess only. Proper stationery shops are nicer, but the number of those seems to go down while the number of the overpriced shops seems to go up…

Neill, I first noticed that Lamy stand you mentioned in 2010 and was quite excited to see Lamy in Shanghai. This shopping centre used to be quite empty, but in recent years it has become so busy there…

The one in PuDong:

Now there are even more Lamy stands. There’s one in the Raffles shopping centre at the end of FuZhou Road (sorry, no picture) and one in XuHui in that shopping centre between Hua Shan Lu and Panyu Road. That shopping centre that, in the past, used to have the worst toilets.

The one in XuHui:

As you said some things are twice as expensive, but that seems to vary. Safaris are much more expensive, while the Pico is only slightly more expensive. One good thing is that these stands sell the old (and new) limited edition colours for the same price as the other colours. These colours sell for a lot more on eBay.

Since you mentioned the price for mechanical pencils, I wonder how much paper is in Korea. Even though pens are much cheaper in China, compared tot he UK, the price for paper is very similar. Is it the same in Korea?

In response to Claire. I live in Korea and I have found most stationery to be much cheaper than other countries. I have a fondness for mechanical pencils and I get them here for less than half the price in the UK. I grant that some of the famous stores can be a little pricier but still comparatively cheap.

Korean and Japanese stationery do seem to be more expensive (though I can’t tell which ones are made in China which ones are not), even on online shops like taobao. A friend that recently visited Korea attested what you said, they are not cheap in Korea. She visited a store next to an art college, namely an everyday store instead of a tourist store, and she was crying at the price of everything.

Second-hand textbook stores, cute and girly things are among the few things I really really miss from China. I mean, sure they have those here in North America, but they are so grossly expensive…

Digress: German seems like a status thing in Japan, just like English. In cartoons, the crowd will be in awe when someone speaks German.
Maybe Japanese tourists are everywhere and the Japanese just like learning languages so this example doesn’t mean anything, but in Wien the ‘status’ idea was reinforced when I bumped into a group of old Japanese ladies that were taking a German course (it was adorable, the lady that talked to me kept saying ‘Also…’) I mean, I understand young people learning German for professional reasons, but senior in groups, this must be a popular or fashionable thing for them.

http://users.rcn.com/stewoody/makecam.htm

Took the ‘film’ to be developed at a local camera shop. Mostly came out terrible, but boy was it fun!

Sean, yes, they are not too expensive either. The darkness is ok for me, but darker would be nice if it doesn’t mean the point gets used up too fast.

The writing/drawing distinction is interesting. I haven’t thought of this before (or forgot), probably also because manufacturers often don’t specify whether the pencils are for drawing or writing. I should pay attention to this.

One thing I want to add about the M&G pencil. It is very nice, but I tend to keep pencils between pages of books or diaries and the paint of the AWP34601 leaves dark marks on the paper that are very very difficult to erase. Very annoying, especially because otherwise this is a very nice pencil.

I’ve always liked the black Design Grip pencils, though I wish they were a darker grade. I’d probably use them all of the time if that were the case.

M&G also makes notebooks which seem to be popular online, did you recall seeing any in stores in Shanghai?

The distinction between European and Japanese grading is a useful one.
Among non-Japanese pencils I also noticed HB writing pencils are usually darker (and usually softer) than HB drawing pencils. For example, while I’m fine with HB Norica, Noris, Rheita, Ticonderoga etc, the HB Mars Lumograph 100, Faber-Castell 9800, KIH Toison D’or etc are simply too light for me.

That’s a handsome looking pencil! I like its industrial brown color. The ‘dots’ fit the design nicely. Although I suspect they are packed too closely for the fingers to tell individual ones apart. I’m guessing the surface on this one feels more continuous than the ordinary Grip 2001, Matthias?

Their pens and mechanical pencils are much more common than their wood cased pencils.

I don’t normally use 2B pencils, but this one is nice, smooth, you can use it for occasional writing without having to sharpen too often, but I have only used it for writing down the odd word or sentence here or there, I haven’t used it for long note taking or anything like that yet (being scared that it being a 2B I’d have to sharpen too often).

The 2B seems to be more of a European 2B, not a Japanese 2B. According to my limited experience with this pen the point stays sharp at least as long as that of a Tombow Mono 100 HB.

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Kevin, even though I like the black grip design pencil from Faber-Castell I was never keen on the Grip 2001. I think I just don’t like the look, even though I like the Grip 2011, like you. I used the black version a lot when I was still using ballpoint pens, and I also have a grey and blue version. I haven’t bought the mechanical pencil version yet, though.

Claire, I also usually avoid triangular pencils, but I am not sure why I don’t like them. Some of them are really not very nice. I find the triangular Eberhard Faber 1210 even less exciting than the Grip 2001, even though the lead is actually very nice for a cheap pencil. Lexikaliker gave me a fantastic custom version of the Grip a while ago, one of the best looking pencils I know. I should take a photo and show it here, I don’t think Lexikaliker has shown it on his web site yet.

My liking of the Grip 2001s actually grew with use. Not that I pay attention to it all the time, but the dots provide a pleasant feedback to the fingers. While I usually avoid triangular pencils because of my (incorrect) holding position, the dots somehow make the barrel feel less triangular or obtrusive. The lead is light for the marking, even 2B is lighter than what I expect for HB. But the upside is that they last longer between sharpenings, therefore can be taken to meetings.

This is the case of a pencil that promised much ..(and probably still does to a certain section of the market) but doesn’t really deliver. On the contrary, I find it’s mechanical pencil cousin, the grip 2011, is a very functional and well made product.

Rares, to change the indicator, just turn the clip.

I wish Platt’s well in their new online incarnation. If they can show a bit of individuality they could thrive. I hope they can.

Koralatov, it is really sad, but I have to admit that I didn’t go there so often myself, only once every few months. The problem is that parking in the city centre is just so expensive… Did you find another nice shop or is it Paperchase for you now?

Palimpsest, I hope their online shop will be successful, but it looks pretty standard to me – a shop were you buy if you know what you want, not like an online shop where you can discover new things, like Jet Pens or Cult Pens.. I hope that will improve once they switch to online only.

Sean, they don’t know I have a blog. I tried to start a conversation about the situation in the UK regarding online shops, but the shop was about to close down and the shop keeper had to leave to catch a bus. They might find the nice comments left here sooner or later if they search for their shop on the Internet or if they check who links to their online shop. I didn’t notice new book stores opening in the UK, at least not in Preston, but I did notice this in/near my home town in Germany. Would be nice if these shops have enough business to survive..

Kevin, I don’t know about Australia, but in the UK big shopping malls have free car parks and are often easily accessible, which is certainly an advantage when compared to town and city centre. On the other hand, shopping malls usually only have chains in them, no independent shops where you might find something you cannot find anywhere else.. about the homely look, the shops looks slightly different in reality: the colours of the photo are rather odd, but it was already getting dark – so I wasn’t able to get better colours…

Like book stores, pen shops have certainly been affected by e-commerce, but has any one else noticed a few book stores popping up every once in a while? I don’t mean to suggest there is a “comeback” happening, but I wonder if a small crack in the Amazon armor (and the folding of Borders) might be helping to keep a few mom-and-pop stores afloat. I have seen a few stores in a few different states, and it’s encouraging (if not too naïve to think so).

As for drying, it’s very quick, even on glossier papers like Rhodia. It’s a vast improvement over the ponderously slow Noodler’s I was using before, and means I can shut my diary nearly instantly, instead of having to wait a few minutes for it to dry. It’s also a lot smoother-flowing in my pen too, which is another plus.

The Banditapple’s simplicity is a big part of its appeal to me: I want a notebook for jotting things down in quickly without having to worry about how the paper performs. On that count, these seem perfect.

The Banditapples are great, even though it’s such a simple item you can feel the attention to detail that went into designing and making them.

I switched to Sailor’s “Kiwa-Guro” in black, which is the best ink I’ve ever tried.

To go back on topic, once I use up some of my huge stash of pocket notebooks, I’ll be sure to give the Banditapples a try — they seem perfect for my needs.

Most RSS-enabled sites have a comments feed, though the URL will naturally be different.

Oh, the gold-plated super clip wasn’t on your list, but it being more than twice as expensive as the normal ones I am not surprised that it’s not available…

I did not get a mail notification on your reply (not sure if you do that) but:

Standard Metal (30 Pages Copy Paper): Silver, Red, Blue, Yellow, Green
Large Metal (40 Pages Copy Paper): Silver
Clear Plastic (15 Pages Copy Paper): Clear, Blue, Pink, Orange, Green

Thanks!

The first thing I thought of when I saw the warning sign was Lexikaliker’s “manicule collection”, the second thing I thought of was a warning sign on the photocopiers at work. I should take a photo of that sign. Great to see these details on your photos.

I’m quite surprised that Lidl doesn’t sell these in Germany. I haven’t compared Lidl in the UK and in Germany recently, but in the past Lidl UK often sold many of the same articles as Lidl Germany, but a few weeks or month later and usually for a slightly higher price than in Germany. Funnily enough some of the good stuff from each country’s Lidl stores is not available in the other country.

Thank you for the photos of the sharpener on your website – I wish that item would also be available at Lidl Germany. – I like the warning sign, although I am surprised that it doesn’t show a pointed finger

Best regards,

Gunther

Thanks very much for pointing out the sharpener on sale at Lidl. I bought several. They do have rubber pencil grips, and work very well. I posted a short review on my site. http://ibsimpson.com/post/desktop-pencil-sharpener-lidl

Best regards,
Iain.

No political or any other plan.
Just Black cover is from HCMC (Saigon), and Red cover is from Hanoi.
So I called Saigon Black, and Hanoi Red.

Sean, I used to prefer graph lines for notepads and notebooks. Currently, I prefer graph lines for notepads, but for notebooks I prefer ruled paper …but I guess my taste might change again, somewhen in the future. By the way, the lines in the ruled 2G notebooks are black while the squares in the in the 2G notebook with graph lines are blue.

Kevin, I assume the names Hanoi Red and Saigon Black were chosen because these notebooks are made in Vietnam. I don’t think Arnie had any political reasons in mind, but I cannot be sure. Noodler’s names are often political – and in his videos on youtube he also talks about politics and the economy quite often. Not getting too off-topic here, but I really like Noodler’s inks. One of several reasons is that I want ink to be waterproof, but so far I haven’t been too excited about the Noodler’s pens I bought.

Kevin, the Deli does have rubber coated grippers. I know exactly what you mean. I saw the Carl Angel-5 in green for 55 RMB (less than £6, €7, $9) in a great shop in Shanghai – a shop I want to write about soon. The Carl Angel-5 looks so good and I like it even more because it has a metal body, but I had a bite mark sharpener in the past and just don’t want another one.

Claire, I got it from my father-in-law. He bought it in 1986 when the factory stopped making this specific model. This must be one of the last ones of this model and it is like new.

Sean, a great camera and a great sharpener.

Kevin, yes, it is a real shame.. Forwarding the lead feels like a normal mechanical pencil.

Claire, once I wrote about the new Shanghai stuff I might be tempted to write about things from the past. The problem is that for every blog post I find time to write I get several new ideas for blog posts that never materialise.

Gunther, all the accessories are very good, the erasers, too…A triangular version without the indentations on the grip would be nice…

Kevin, I hope I’ll find the time to write more. There are a few more things I want to write about, but to be honest, that happens every time after I am back from Shanghai and after a few weeks I usually give up and write blog posts about new things, because I think the information from Shanghai is too old by then. The LeftRight is the incremental feed type, you can use it upside down if you want. Each time you press the lead is propelled approx. 2mm. The baby blue is actually quite nice. The blue fits well with Lexikaliker’s logo and reminds me of the two shades of blue of a Commodore 64 screen.

ExcaliburZ, I have seen many of the items in this shop in other shops, but some things you can find there are not common in Shanghai. For example many of their imported Staedtler and Faber-Castell items. They also used to have a Pelikan counter, but it either moved or closed down. I wouldn’t be surprised if it closed down as Pelikan pens in Shanghai tend to be about twice as expensive as in Europe.

Claire: The last time I have used that pencil (which was a few years ago) I was very disappointed – it was scratchy and has crumbled. Maybe the formula has been improved but I don’t feel the need for another test

Gunter: I was surprised to hear Lyra Art Design 669 is not desirable, so I’m curious what’s your impression on them. I have one 9B (as hard as 4B or 5B in other brands so it’s still okay for writing) and quite enjoy it, maybe there’s a bit of wax in the formula, the writing feels buttery. Having tried only one pencil so I’m not qualified to judge, but are 669 usually of lower quality than, say, Mars Lumograph 100? Just curious what led to that comment.

You are absolutely right that it’s very easy to pick up cheaper brand name pencils, which many students will go for..

I wonder what kind of customers they are targeted for. Don’t how much common writing pencils cost in China nowadays, but 10 RMB for a pack sounds a bit high for local school and university students. I’d imagine one can easily find Chinese brandname pencils for 5 RMB a dozen. memm, what’s your impression?

Keep an eye out for reductions, though.

Stephen, it was very nice.

Kevin, hehe I think changes to the quantity do happen sometimes, so an eraser is really useful.

Claire, the bowl at the bottom left is for congee. Very nice – this place has one of the best congees I know. The 6151 and 101 are nice everyday pencils, but I don’t think they can compete with the big boys – and they don’t even want as is obvious from the low price. Saying that I have to add that I have seen mail order shops in Europe that sell these Chung Hwa pencils for a quite high price that puts them in the same price bracket as the top pencils…

I have one box of 6151 and one box of 101 HB. Both of them write just okay but not great, so I’m surprised to see many commenters on penciltalk actually liking them.

Good that you’ll sell them in more countries. In the UK I’ve recently seen OHTO pens in shops that didn’t use to sell OHTO. Hearing now that you’ll sell the clips in the USA makes me think that OHTO tries to expand into new markets and countries, all over the world.

Thank you for the review and everyone for commenting! These are OHTO Super Clips! They come in a variety of colors and can be picked up in metal or plastic! We will soon begin selling them direct within the US for your readers that are not in Germany. Thanks again!

T.J. ~ OHTO Americas

Claire, I won’t be baking a cake even though this would be a fitting occasion for a pencil shaped cake…

Stationery Traffic, I actually made a mistake in the original post. We have this Currys / PC World Megastore (they belong together), but the stationery was actually from the Currys half, not the PC World half. I found it while browsing through the shop when my car got its service and MOT in the garage next door. I fixed the post now to mention Currys instead. We have a few more Currys store in Preston. I drive by one of them on my way to work. I will check whether they sell stationery, too.

‘Tis pity I live so far from a branch of PC World, though.

Best wishes

Bruce

John, finding out more about the history of Royal Sovereign and Staedtler UK and about Staedtler SA would be fantastic. I am always surprised that despite their products being used every day hardly anything is known about stationery manufacturers. Staedtler’s products are so common in so many countries, but there is no interest by the media – which is quite different to the situation in some other industries.

I am very much looking forward to hearing more about the companies and locations you and Alan worked for.

I am surprised by the sudden interest in this old blog post, but couldn’t find any new web page linking to this blog post.

Thank you for your comments.

Barbara, I am not sure what you meant. There is a version of the Faber-Castell Grip 2001 that comes with a black eraser.

Sometimes I feel 4B for writing is an overkill so I’d like to try their HB, but I’m also sitting on it because of the packaging! Any idea how we’d know when packaging change occurs? On their website Palomino comes in two packaging options: ziplock banded version and boxed version, and the latter costs a dollar more. I went for the box but still got the ziplock. Maybe we should just write to them?

About the weight, I’d say the signature contains on the order of magnitude micrograms of graphite, assuming one stroke in the capital C measures 1cm, the pencil point being 0.5mm thick, a layer of writing being 10^(-6) cm (the largest source of error!), and given the density of graphite being about 2g/cm^3.

Stephen, it looks as if some pencils were painted there, but it also looks as if nbf never had a distribution network. I wonder what happened to the pencils. My guess would be (mentioned in the footer) that they were either sold locally or to variety stores or they might have been sent back to China.
Access to the market wasn’t really denied, but failure seems to be down to the fact that “Made in Germany” could not be printed on these pencils. This was, as far as I know, a decision by the chamber of commerce. It looks like failure of nbf was down to poor planning, they should have known about the “Made in Germany” issue earlier. If they thought they can get away with it the misinterpreted the situation. I also don’t think China First Pencil Company gained from this venture, despite the subsidies, I assume they must have lost money in the end – but this is just a guess from someone who is not in this industry.

There is also an interesting public policy aspect to this – one branch of government giving subsidies to this company, while another denies access to the market.

Claire, one of the things I like most in Chinese supermarkets is that you always know where products are from. If they are from China you usually even see the city they are from. I wish they would introduce something similar here. If you go to an Aldi supermarket in the UK you usually cannot see where the food is from, even though most other supermarkets display the EU Identification Mark.

Gunther, I doubt pairing and adjusting adds 50% value in Leica’s case, but of course you could argue that is important and that the camera wouldn’t work without this. It would probably be cheaper and easier to do that in Portugal, but then they wouldn’t be able to print ‘Made in Germany’ on the camera…
About ‘Made in Germany’ and Great Britain. As far as I know German products where really quite awful at the time. Germany started by producing cheap items, later they changed to high quality. Some argue the ‘Made in Germany’ signed helped to speed this process up as people only bought the German items, know that they knew where they were from, after they were convinced that the quality is good.

The change from cheap to high quality also happened to Japan after WWII, to Korea after their democratic reforms in the late 1980s and it is happening to China now. I wonder what amazing products will come out of Korea and China in the future…

uninformed seller (newsagent), few buyers… Australians only seem to think abput iphones and ipads.

The Faber-Castell ruler you mentioned does look very nice! I don’t remember ever seeing it in shops though.

Here’s the kind of ruler I wish were easy to get in the States: http://bundoki.com/?pid=22644939
There is one company that makes them, C-Thru, but they’re not very good. You can’t find any of Faber-Castell’s precision and drafting products in the U.S. Well, at least I can’t.

I like the idea (and the feel) of the matte finish, but I feel the “stamping” and painted stripe significantly cheapen the look of the pencil. I used a mildly abrasive sponge on one or two pencils, and was able to basically rub away the excess paint around the stamping, making the imprint look a little cleaner…but it’s tricky because the imprint is so shallow and the stripe so easily damaged. Once the markings have been rubbed off, I guess it’s no big deal anyway.

Swapping out the white erasers for black ones is easy enough now, but the effectiveness of the stock erasers leaves me ignoring them completely, except in situations where bad erasure is better than no erasure.

It’s one of those pencils that comes very close to something really interesting and compelling, but seems to fall just short in the details.

Matthias, do you plan to do a write-up of the 602 version? Too bad about the ferrule…the glue can be broken without too much effort, but mine have held up pretty well so far, and I use them a lot. Biggest drawbacks for me are the eraser (the color is fine this time, but the quality is still lacking) and the imprint depth (more attractive, but easily wiped out). What are your thoughts?

Unfortunately there is no Leuchtturm1917 notebook that meets your demands – I am sure that you would be happy with it (despite your disappointment with their pen loop).

Thank you for mentioning the bottom tier pencils. I think the bottom tier pencil from well-known pencil manufacturers are often overlooked. One of my favourites in this group is the Faber-Castell Bonanza. They just look so good and the performance is ok, too.

Gunther: The anniversary pencil are beautiful! Are all the printings on them golden in color, including ‘HB’? (the front one looks a bit white so i wasn’t sure)

So next year will be 350 years since the registration of Friedrich Staedtler as a pencil maker. I wonder if there will be a commemoration?

Gunther, thank you for that interesting Staedtler Schnapszahlen detail. This must be part of the events that resulted in a lawsuit from Faber-Castell.

So next year will 350 years since the registration of Friedrich Staedtler as a pencil maker. I wonder if there will be a commemoration?

>This week, after a few days of use, the ferrule came off.
Memm: quite disturbing to read this so I checked my “in use” PBW 602 and the ferrule is solid as a rock, can’t budge it.

Well it is easy in the sense that this three pack is sold in our one major “office chainstore” called Officeworks. I haven’t seen it anywhere else though.

I’m still struggling on the darkness of the 2B – I’ve changed my mind once again and believe it is a little darker than the other two under heavier pressure – in other words it has a wider tonal range than the 2H and HB…JMO. This is only an advantage when drawing/sketching since normal pressure writing results in even grades between the three.

I have Eisen 31 and 403. The one with unknown blade isn’t Eisen and I can’t identify it. Only Eisen sharpeners come with Eisen blades or does Eisen also supply blades to other companies? I’m guessing the latter will only bring competition.

I like the variation in the covers on the notebook. It makes me think they’re using a bunch of designs from their archives to make a variety of covers for the notebook. The “Class Cancelled” one does have some slightly odd language on it, but I took it as being American English rather than an impersonation. “Less bleeds” is just bad English, and “my way or no way” strikes me as someone older trying to sound “hip”.

Claire: I read in a comment somewhere (I think by Woodchuck) that the ends of the new Blackwings were machined down slightly and the ferrules were then glued. That explains why they’re the only pencils I’ve come across where the ferrule wasn’t pinched on.

When it comes down to using them, they seem very similar, albeit with slighter darker wood in the Tradition than the Noris. The eraser-tipped Norises and Traditions use the exact same ferrule and eraser, and the Tradition is about 10p more expensive per pencil than the Noris.

Stephen, just a small detail regarding the Schnapszahlen: In 1995 Staedtler have celebrated their 333rd anniversary and sold a retro tin with a printed inlay that featured that number. As far as I know they also had a Lumograph with a special imprint (but I am not sure).

Gunther, the colour of the cap does match the imprint as they are both golden, but the imprint is glossy while the cap is matt – a bit like the current Castell 9000 pencils, just with the cap being golden, not silver.

Sean, that’s an interesting question. I asked Faber-Castell, maybe they do know the answer. I previously asked how many Jubilator tins there were, but this information doesn’t seem to be recorded.

Kevin, I think the colour on the photo is a bit deceptive. The weather was horrible when I took these picture and I didn’t use a flash, so the light changed all the time. Under most light conditions the green of the Jubilator would feel darker than on this picture.

Stephen, I would say (others might disagree) that under 100 Schnapszahlen are not as important as multiples of ten (so 11 is not as exciting as 10), but above 100 a number like 222 feels more special for many than a number like 220.
I am not sure what you mean by ‘archived’, but I hope your old content stays online. I have spent many nice hours after discovering your blog, Gunther’s blog and Dave’s blog, all of which were well established when I found them, reading old articles.

Claire, it’s really nice. I wonder why they mirrored it.

Claire, I didn’t know the Wopex is being sold with eraser caps. How did these eraser caps look like? Did they have Staedtler printed on them somewhere?

Are your sharpeners from Eisen?

About the city of manufacturing – that is probably the one thing I like most about Chinese supermarkets. For foerign good you always see the country of origin. For Chinese goods you see the city or at least the region where it has been manufactured, I really like this!

Kevin, is the Wopex easy to find in Australia?

memm: you are right the choice of soft /hard pencil depends on preference, paper and purpose. I use 4B pencils half of the time, mostly because on the paper I use (thin fibrous writing pad with dark printed grids) an HB is hard to read. When I write on smoother paper 4B lines do look a bit dirty and I use harder ones. But in general I do prefer soft pencils, I mean, I’d use them when they work. Wopex HB is the hardest and lightest I feel like working with, just a preference.

As for sharpening, I enjoy doing it. For me it’s part of the workflow: I start with two sharpened 4B, and when both of them need sharpening (usually half an hour) I take a five-minute break!

I wasn’t aware of Schnapszahlen – is an 11th anniversary of an event thus considered a significant anniversary, on par with the 10th?

Thank you for the links to my blog. I’m wondering if some of the older content should be archived.

I wonder if each country had their own tins. For example, this looks to be a British item (or at least, the special insert was printed for distribution in the U.K.). Do we know if there were concomitant French and German versions?

Claire, I haven’t used a 4B, but used the Staedtler Mars Lumograph 3B a few times for writing (but normally avoid soft pencils, not only because of the sharpening, but also because I prefer lighter lines to dark lines that smear – this of course depends on the paper and purpose of writing).
When I read Woodchuck’s post I thought of the Elcometer, too. 8^)

I started using the new Palomino Blackwing 602, which is much better for writing. This week, after a few days of use, the ferrule came off. that’s not nice. I wonder whether this is a one off problem or whether the ferrules are not attached as well as they should.

Thanks for sharing he photo. The one on the left reminds me of washi paper tape. The one in the middle makes me think of Sean’ comment about the odd language.

Stationery Traffic, oh I didn’t know. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Claire, unfortunately there’s no Carrefour in the UK and in Germany. Belgium was a one off trip. I just checked and found out tthat they also left Switzerland. My only chance to visit a Carrefour is probably in China, but Carrefour in Shanghai doesn’t carry these notebooks – or at least they didn’t use to. I haven’t been to a Carrefour in Shanghai for a few years, but should try to visit one again next time I’m there.

I wonder whether all their paper is from the same manufacturer. Did your notebook say it’s made in France?

First impression, a highly subjective one:
Judging in its own right instead of as a resurrection of the original bw 602 (which I haven’t tried) I like California Republic’s interpretation of the name ‘blackwing’ quite a lot. Overall the design is elegant, the pencil is very pleasing to look at. Several reviews said otherwise but to me the black paint is of high quality, the imprint, the band and the golden ferrule go extremely well with this shade of black*. I especially appreciate the gold imprint not being shiny, it’d otherwise be distracting. Also it is an enjoyment to touch this pencil, it is uniform and smooth yet not slippery.

It doesn’t seem to wear down as fast as a Staedtler 4B, which has comparable darkness. As for smoothness, I only wrote with it for a few hours so far, the impression may change later, but for now it feels smoother than Staedtler 4B, can be smoother or less so than a K-I-N progresso 4B depending on paper.
* yes I assume there are different shades of black. the mirado classical black for example has a slightly paler shade and lacks the luster.

More on wear rate, Woodchuck mentioned using a mechanical device to measure “the wear rates as determined by the length of line drawn per millimeter of wear under constant pressure”. Not sure if it’s one of the devices described on Lexikaliker.

There’s no Carrefour in Canada, but at Basque Country this summer I picked up an A4 hardcover spiral bound Carrefour notebook. 120 pages of 70 g paper, vertical edges are colored. Not a fancy notebook but I kinda liked it.

memm:
Mine came in a blister package indeed, 10 pencils (not a dozen) with 5 eraser caps.
Thanks for clarifying on the blades. I unfortunately don’t know more about the sharpeners. The cylindrical one says ‘made in China’ on the bottom, so it echoes what you said: blade is made in Germany while the body is made in China.

I wonder though, in general how do people learn the origin (in terms of manufacturing) of a product down to the city: from the fact that the company has a factory there, or are there identifying information on the package and/or on the product itself?

For any who are interested, I bought a few more of them, including one of the “Class Cancelled” and one of the “Flower” designs. I’ve uploaded a terrible quality photo of them and the “Smiley” one here, in case anyone wants to see some of the other designs. The photo isn’t great, but it should give you an idea.

Due to the sharpening issue, I haven’t really used the Wopexes much.  It’s a shame, because when I have, I’ve liked the lead because it doesn’t smudge and there’s no discernible transfer between pages when writing on the reverse.

Memm: The dozen HB Wopexes I bought came in a cardboard box, but not the usual six-wide/two-high configuration.  It was a wider, flatter box with a single row of pencils inside, and with a flap to tuck it closed again.  In that respect the box was almost as unusual as the pencils inside!

Claire, I would be interest to know how your Wopex pack looked like. Was it a blister pack? I am just trying to find out whether there is a cardboard box with a dozen (as this the packaging I prefer for pencils). My speculation about the German blades was referring to Eisen 402 blades. I recently read somewhere that all Eisen blades are Made in Germany, even the ones for sharpener bodies made in Taicang, but I read somewhere else that they manufacture blades in Taicang, too. I assume an unmarked blade could be from either of their factories, but both types of blades perform well when sharpening the Wopex.
Do you know who manufactured the cheap sharpeners you mentioned?

Both the “Smiley Face” and “One Way” notebooks have the same paper in them; they appear to be all the same notebook, just with a different design printed on the cover. I tested on a random page of all six I bought, with the same result. I did notice that one of the “One Way” covers is marginally more orange than the others, but appears to be made of the same paper stock, just a touch darker. I also saw a flowery design, one that said “No Homework”, and another that said “Class Cancelled”. I bought the “Smiley” and “One Way” books because I liked those designs best.

Graphite is definitely a touch lighter on this paper than most; it doesn’t seem to “stick” in quite the same way as other papers, and my pencils don’t seem to become blunt quite as fast. I also noticed that there’s almost no graphite transfer between pages when writing on the reverse of them, which is very unusual for paper so thin. The more I use them, the more I like them — cheap, made in USA, with good paper, and a lot of character. I also love the size: it’s almost, but not quite, the perfect size for me (B5 is my ideal size of notebook, but is sadly uncommon outside of Japan).

Now I have to resist my hoarding instincts and stop myself going back any buying out the shop’s entire stock of them…

Memm once speculated blades made in German might differ in performance compared to unlabelled blades (taking out some other factors), so I should point out the blade in the above mentioned Staedtler sharpener doesn't bear any marking and the Eisen blade was made in Germany, and in general the Eisen outperforms the Staedtler. So I'm not sure if I should attribute the ease of sharpening to the shape of sharpener or to the blade. The point of this comment though is, with the 'right' sharpener one can sharpen a wopex without exerting much force.

I would classify English words, used in German, as follows (others might disagree).

• English words where German alternatives did exist for a brief moment in time before the English word became common (e.g. airbag, firewall).
• English words that have German alternatives and both, the English and German word, are being used (e.g. computer, team).
• English words that are being used in German, but with a very different meaning and where no common German alternatives exist (e.g. handy, oldtimer).
• English words that replaced the German equivalents quite a while ago (e.g. star, show, make-up). The German alternatives are rarely used.
• English words that are used by teenagers and that replace the German equivalents for no apparent reason (e.g. sorry, game).

I do find words from the last category irritating and am probably not the only one with this attitude.
Consultants and people in marketing also seem to use English words instead of the common German words, either to feel more important or intelligent or to use this as a reason to make things sound more complicated and charge more.

I would assume this situation is more or less similar in all non-English speaking countries. Maybe Henrik could tell us about the situation in Denmark.

Gunther might have some additional or different ideas about this (I left Germany ten years ago and am not necessarily up-to-date).

Today I have seen a small stationary excavator to be used by children. They can insert a 50 cent coin and move arm and scoop inside a cage so that nobody is injured by the moving parts. On the seat was a sign with the lettering “KidBag – Der Spielbagger”. What’s the idea? Abbreviating the German word “Bagger” with the English word “bag”, distorting the meaning? I doubt that they are global players, so the only reason I can think of is that “KidBag” is more appealing to them. Out two boys have recognized that toy without reading the sign – to them just being available was sufficently appealing

On the flip-side, it’s often humorous (in the friendly sense) when Asian marketers attempt to create ‘hip’ American slogans for products, e.g. “Super Nifty Fun Pen!” Now THAT’S something I’d like to have on a poster or t-shirt!

Anyway, what I ‘m curious about is what type of products are using English slogans in Germany, and whether you think it’s to target a wider, international audience, or is there something about using English that might make the item more appealing to Germans? I can’t imagine what that would be.

Another example of things that can go wrong, this time not about marketing. Last week in a shopping centre: a prerecorded message, professionally produced “…one lucky customer will have the chance of winning a trip to…”

Kevin, this marketing gobbledygook is becoming more and more common. At least here in the UK you can find it in adverts anywhere, I can also feel this dark side of the force getting stronger in Germany. If hasn’t arrived in Australia yet: Brace for impact. Going shopping with my wife usually makes me notice it much more than in a more manly environment. This dark force is very strong near make-up counters or other beauty products. You read sentences like “30% bigger eyelashes” – and I don’t know anything.. How did they measure this? It doesn’t say longer, it’s not about the surface either I guess, bigger would imply that they are talking about the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by the eyelashes, but the picture (a drawing, not a photo, so even more difficult to believe) showing the before / after eyelash shows that this is clearly not what they meant as the two eyelashes on the picture have a phenomenal size difference. If it’s not measure, but someone said it looks 30% bigger, where does that come form, is it anecdotal evidence or was there a sample, what about the sampling frame, population, sampling method, control group? and most important, as in your comment: bigger than what? Bigger than before using the product? On the picture that accompanies the slogan the difference is much bigger than 30%, whichever way you measure it. I just give up, it’s as bad as all the adverts that read free this or that when you buy something else. Isn’t it then a set and you pay for both? The other item is of course not free (I’m waiting to see a sign like “Free seatbelts when you buy this car” one day).

About the pencils, the Kimberley looks lovely, it also has this nice look like items made in the past – on old machines. Initial experience suggests that it’s a nice pencil, but I have to use it more to be sure. Longer user of General’s yellow pencil showed that it’s not as good as some other yellow pencils, but General’s Kimberley might be a better pencil.

But most importantly: excellent deployment of the interrobang!

About Pepsi Raw, I do have a stockpile of it, but it’s over it’s BBE date. I don’t think there’s any UK stock left that hasn’t expired yet.
I didn’t really like the taste of Pepsi Raw, but it was certainly better than Crystal Pepsi from the early 1990s. About my secret stockpile of Colas…. it includes a few limited edition pop art Cherry Coke cans (Warhol style) from the mid-1980s, still unopened 8^)

Kevin, I am amazed by the depth of knowledge shown in the comments. Pencils area a conversation starter after all, it seems…

I can’t imagine the eraser invade things it’s not in contact with, so if you put it away from the lid, the lid is safe. What about the pencils, are they painted as well?

Gunther, I followed your advice and sent en email four days ago. Let’s see whether they will reply.

Alberto, what you wrote about kneaded erasers sounds rather scary…

Claire, Stephen described this eraser as a vinyl eraser. I am not sure whether vinyl erasers are better or worse, but I certainly didn’t expect it to behave like this. The ‘slowly moving liquid which seeps into other materials’ explanation sounds interesting and scary… I am not sure whether there is a dent. If there is one it is under the gooey layer which I haven’t removed yet… If GvFC doesn’t reply in a week or two I should probably follow your suggestion to fix the lid. Thanks. About the eraser, I was wondering whether it is sufficient to rest it on something else than wood and just make sure it doesn’t touch the lid?

Stephen, I use silver polish cloths or a silver cleaning cream. They also work great on the small GvFC sharpeners as the leave the less exposed areas darker which gives a great overall look.

Judging by the picture in this post what happened isn’t discoloration, which usually implies photo- or sunbleaching, but is rather an extensive exchange of paint / pigments with eraser material. Simply put, the paint has transfered from box to eraser. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but maybe there’s a slight dent at the center of the discoloration, where paint was lift off by the eraser. I don’t have experience treating this, but maybe apply paint to the bald spots like you did to the bend corner, sand it, apply varnish then sand again?

If you put the eraser back it will do the same thing again. I’d make a small cardboard box that fit the eraser and place the set in the wooden box. But an obvious drawback for this is, you have to take off the cardboard box to see the gorgeous imprinted eraser holder.

Memm, I see where you are coming from now. I haven’t seen a hexagonal Noris in store yet (too bad!). So far I’ve only come across Noris Club (+ Jumbo) and Noris Ergosoft (+ Jumbo). Even then, only every other store that carries Mars Lumograph also carries these. I suppose the Noris are marketed/designed to be everyday writing pencils, i.e. office supply, and for that, people here are too content with Papermate, Dixon, store brand and even Ikea pencils for (the more expensive) Noris to be popular.

Adair and Da, thanks for sharing your pencil case experience.

I think it is quite common, especially for plastic cases, that the flap with the schedule card, will come off after long use.

The pencil cases of this shape are, in my experience, more common for young children. Older children and teenagers tend to use pencil cases more similar to the Sonnenleder case Berit.

Claire, I based this on the fact that the Noris and Tradition is not listed on the Staedtler USA page. A quick search on the Internet found many shops that sell the Mars Lumograph, one shop that sells the Wopex, but not shops for the Noris and Tradition. The Club version of the Noris is quite new, maybe that’s why it’s available in Canada. Have you seen the ‘traditional’, hexagonal Noris in shops?

Sean, that would be interesting. I have seen him with another pencil in the past, but cannot remember now which one that was. I assume he does not really have any preference and just uses whatever is available – but this is just a guess…

Quite a collection of photos! I’ll have to look more closely to see if Gordon carries his pencils with him to the United States.

About your description of the Mars Lumograph: In this case Staedtler’s Non-Photo-Blue pencil must have been the opposite of the Mars Lumograph.

Irisch Moos has cedar in the heart note. I use their shaving soap They make after shave, too.

I wonder, is Gordon Ramsay popular in Germany? I found out that Jamie Oliver is.

As far as I know the Lumograph has its roots in engineering; it was designed to be a pencil that has the perfect features for blueprints.

Regarding the connection between pencils and perfume: What about an after shave with an “incense cedar” fragrance? I expect this to be a real pleasure for all pencil heads

Sean, I’ll put my hopes Basteln mit dem Lexikaliker for the next diary or in a better pen loop…

Gunther, if it’s constructional there might be simple modifications to fix this, e.g. the adhesive area could just be made smaller not to include the tab, unless the glue is there to hold the loop in place before it is sewn on. The easiest way of fixing this might just be to sew the loop on as far at the end of the tap as possible.
Putting any sort of protective stickers over the glue on the tab would probably not work. Trying to put a pencil in that has a ‘frictionous’ surface (Wopex) would probably remove those stickers.

Sean: You have motivated me I don’t think that it is too difficult. There are elastic ribbons from mixed fabric – maybe a loop from these can be sawn to a piece of duct tape …

Kiwi-d, I cannot explain the derivation completely, but I can tell you where the two components of the word are from. The modern Greek word for pencil is molyvi, I thought this could be made into a word similar to theophile or audiophile. You’d mix modern and ancient Greek, but audiophile is a mix of Latin and Greek, so I guess it’s ok. I thought the word would be molyviphile and would describe someone who loves pencils. After asking Lito from Palimpsest, she suggest molyvophile. Even though Ancient Greek is taught in my state (and many of my classmates chose it) I picked French instead (and forgot it all by now), so I am not sure how the ‘i’ changed into an ‘o’. I am sure Lito can explain. (My bet would be that it’s because of a Genitive.)

Molyvophiles. Cool word, but I can’t find it’s derivation or origin. Can you enlighten me?

The way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

Stationery Traffic, oh, exactly the same model – what a coincidence. I agree that there seems to be a positive correlation – which might also include cameras/photography and watches. The watches bit is however lost on me, probably because I always use a digital watch and don’t find analogue watches convenient (I am so amazingly primitive that I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea).

Sean, maybe the smoothness was really the reason I cannot think of another reason, unless manliness is associated with graphite (which it probably isn’t)… Since the smoothness in pencil leads comes from the mixture of high quality waxes (see position 4:15 in the video) added you could, I guess, make a shaving cream with similar waxes as the ones used in pencil leads, as long as they are not “unhealthy”. Keeping one of Timberline’s posts in mind: There could be a Blackwing shaving cream.

Perhaps they were hoping to imbue their product with the character of ‘smoothness’ with naming the line ‘graphite’?

I have a Merkur 34C as well; I wonder how many pencil/fountain pen enthusiasts also like to use other “old fashioned” technology like this?

After reading this post I looked up a bit of the history of Chung Hwa pencils. Turns out it has an intimate connection with Germany. Up to the 30s, China was unable to produce its own pencil lead, it relied on importing lead then applying the woodcasing domestically. Chinese *nuclear physicist* Chung-Yao Chao saved up from his salary and purchased a lead producing machine from Germany, performed a series of experiments and finally produced the first batch of pencils that were completely manufactured in China. The brandname was Great Wall back then. The factory was later transferred to someone else, after several changes (as mentioned in this article) the name became Chung Hwa.
http://zxskj.cn/zirankexue/wulixuejia/3300.html (google translate isn’t very reliable for this)

Thanx for the giveaway!

Best, and keep on blogging.

Interesting to read that you’ve noticed that Maped seems to be growing their presence in China, UK and Germany ’cause I’ve definitely noticed their growth in the US.

Sean, are there still cedars left and can you just go there or is it a restricted area?
About junipers, I think junipers and cedars are related and some species have different names, one with juniper and one with cedar as part of the name.

Gunther, I am happy you like it. While the other photos were taken last week, the last photo was a few years ago. They just install a new bridge, the old one, a ‘provisional’ bridge that lasted for 70 years, will be removed in a few months.

Shangching, thank you very much. I am happy that you liked it.

Gunther, I am not sure I have the necessary talent to shape and mould pencils with so fine shapes – I am not Fimo trained like you 8^)

Henrik, I haven’t tried it out yet as I am quite busy with work these days. I hope I’ll have a chance to try it out soon, but I need an idea for the shape first. About Muji paper: I did try some very dry fountain pens in the “cotton fabric bonded cover” notebooks – no joy. I didn’t try a XF nib though. My EF nibs are normal, not very dry.

Gunther, thanks for the links to the plug-ins.

Sean, the GvFC pen was of course one I got thanks to you telling me about the auction

Stationery Traffic, the leather is very red, but the colour just stopped before the border line where any more would look unnatural.

Brad, thanks and thanks the compliment and for checking in Safari.

Chuck, I fully understand your attitude to free stuff, but I think if I don’t even ask for it but someone offers it I am happy to accept it. I do know however what you mean re comfortable. Last time I was in a shopping centre I accepted free toothpaste tubes handed out as samples. Accepting an article worth a few pence from a multinational corporation is of course different to accepting an article worth a few pounds from an entrepreneur who just started. In the case of the Monsieur Notebooks I have to say that there was also an implied understanding that I would review the notebook, but even though I did not sugarcoat the review it was still a free gift and that means of course that Tom, who sent me the notebooks had to pay for them.
My cardboard cover is fine by the way. I wouldn’t be surprised if some leather is more suitable to be glued than other leather. It’s top-grain cattle leather, but I guess it can be from different parts of the body, every animal is different, every tanning comes out a bit different, so maybe sometimes the glue doesn’t work as well with the leather surface as other times. The smell is really nice, as you said.

Karina, yes it’s supposed to be tan. Hoe you’ll find time to review yours soon. do you have one with the 140 g/m² paper? I would really like to know how that paper behaves. About the colour: when I first saw the notebook I was surprised, too, but it is a nice colour and doesn’t look unnatural. Thanks for checking the plug-in in your browsers.

Ccorrada, it might be worth contacting Monsieur Notebooks about this. Maybe they will find a distributor in the USA or the Caribbean Sea soon.

Millicent, there are already some companies outside the UK, that sell these notebooks, but as far as I know none in he USA yet. I guess it is only a matter of time before the Monsieur Notebooks will be available in the USA.

Since the current plug-in seems to work well (except the search box staying on top) I might keep it. Thanks again for checking!

I am hoping for a stateside distribution channel soon . . .

I really like the red leather of this notebook – I received the black and brown ones, which are nice, but the red stands out more. Although, is it suppose to be tan? That’s definitely not how I image tan to look like – but then again, it might just be my monitor.

Also, your new image plugin works well in my Firefox 5.0 on a Mac.

Your image plugin works well in Firefox 3.6.18 and Opera 11.50. However, the “Home/Pages/Search/RSS Feed” bar stays on top (i. e. above the overlay) when it was visible while clicking on the image.

Kartika, hehe I actually thought about changing the tagline of the blog, from “don’t like scratchy pencils” to something like “any old pencil won’t do”.

Kevin, thanks for this information. I wonder whether it was the same in the UK.

mjanine

Tim, I hope you’ll be able to find some other nice pencils where you live now.

Stephen, the 12-sided pencil looks very interesting. I haven’t seen it yet in shops, but will keep my eyes open.

Stationery Traffic, strangely enough Welsh Tradition 110s were not too rare here around Preston, but I bought all the ones I found The only Welsh ones left, I know of, are some Noris, which I might buy soon.

Economy Pens, pencils are really one of the most economic pens. I think I saw a video from Faber-Castell recently where Anton Wolfgang Graf von Faber-Castell said something along those lines.

ccorrada, I changed the explanation and hope th meaning of “pre-sharpened on the left” is more clear now.

Count me in for the draw please.

I would appreciate being included in the draw for one of the three prizes.

Thanks for the blog.

what does it means “pre-sharpened on the left”??

Nice work.

I am still able to find Pontyclun-made Staedtlers locally, though supplies are gradually drying up. I found a pair of 4Hs in WHSmith in 2010, but better yet, my local newsagent had stocks of 4B which I bought up. I suspect they have other grades in stock but I have not had the chance to check. In addition, the Stationers That Shall Not Be Named also has a whole box of F on the shelf and no doubt a few other pencils at either end of the hardness spectrum. The Holy Grail is to find a Made-in-GB HB. I would also like to get one made in Australia, just to complete the set.

Oh, and congratulations on the 100th post!

Stephen, thank you for mentioning the 12-sided Noris! Must…get…one…

Thank you for such a comprehensive article. I wasn’t aware of the common background of the Australian and Welsh pencil factories, or of Staedtler’s association with these historical manufacturers.

As demonstrated by the “sketching pencil”, Staedtler Australia and UK seem to have offered (and continue to offer in Australia) a few pencils not available in other markets such as the 12-sided Noris Club maxi.

Is the pencil you are seeking by any chance the Elemento? It appears that it is being offered only as part of a four piece (fountain pen, ballpoint pen, rollerball pen, mechanical pencil) set. Very odd for a company with roots as a pencil maker.

Thanks for the name check – that cake looks lovely

Thanks Jane

PS – I have been nuts about pens, pencils, paper and pencil cases for over 40 years and am unlikely to change now…..

Stationery Traffic, It could be one, but I am not sure. I should check whether I can find more next time I go to my home town. Maybe some not been sanded that well.

Palimpsest, I agree with you 100%. The cracks from the stamping process make the pencil even nicer and give the stamping process are even more old-fashioned feel.

P.S.: Those who are missing player controls to rewind etc. or would like to save the clips: Look at the pages’ source code, copy and paste the link to the second flv file into the browser’s address bar and save the file (on Windows, they can be played e. g. eith VLC).

Bruce, hehe I like the strategically placed ™. I am quite sure I had a white Lamy Safari in the 80s, at that time the clip was black. Maybe I’ll find it one day. While back in my mother’s house over Easter I did find lots of old pens I used in the 70s and 80s I might present some of them in the blog.
About the X-Feather ink. Part of the problem might be (this is just a guess) that the fountain pen is always in my shirt pocket. Maybe X-Feather doesn’t like being stored at warmer temperatures for a long time.

Sean, thanks. I might do more multi-posts then..

Henrik, I read about problems with vintage pens, but the guy behind Noodler’s says his ink is less aggressive than many other inks. I haven’t used it in vintage pens yet, so I haven’t had problems yet. I like that Noodler’s ink are water and document proof and not expensive.

Ccorrada, there are not many shops that sell them, I assume because of the relatively high price. You might find some online shops, there were some in the past that sold it. If you cannot find online shops that sell it you could contact Carta Pura or Font Shop.

Regarding Noodler’s and Private Reserve inks. I stopped using them after they killed one of my vintage Pelikans – it seems the chemistry in these is very aggressive towards cork seals and ebonite feeds. Sadly, because they have bright colours and some interesting capabilities.

Oh, and welcome back to the blogosphere…
Regards
Henrik