Staedtler’s Pencilmaker Set

Fantastic! This morning I received my historic pencilmaker set.  The tin is labelled in eight different languages, even though you can only order this set directly from Staedtler in Germany. Stocks are limited, Staedtler does ship overseas, so if you want you please hurry before they are gone. The price is € 5 per set, one set makes one pencil.

Staedtler Pencilmaker Set

Quick on the Draw

What a nice surprise. I was just just driving home from work when I turned the radio on and heard the end of “Quick on the Draw“, a programme from Radio 4′s In Business series of programmes. This programme picked up two topics that The Economist covered over the last few months: Staedtler vs. Faber-Castell and the Mittelstand. Today’s Radio 4 programme featured an interview with Axel Marx, Managing Director of Staedtler, and Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell. Axel Marx talked about the Wopex and Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell talked about the perfect pencil and the luxurious Graf von Faber-Castell collection. I only heard the second half, but hope to listen to the whole programme on the BBC iPlayer soon1. I am not sure whether the content can be accessed outside the UK, though. If not: the programme will be repeated on Sunday, 17th May 2011, at 21:30 on BBC Radio 4. Even if you are outside the UK you should be able to listen to Radio 4 live over the Internet.

You can also read comments about this programme from the presenter Peter Day on his In Business page.

Two more comments:

  • It was nice to hear people speaking with a Franconian accent on the radio, even though the accent was not very strong.
  • I was not surprised to hear Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell in this programme. He is the one who is often representing Faber-Castell in the media. Last month there was a rare chance to see his brother – in a children’s programme on the TV channel of the public broadcasting authority for the German Freistaat (Republic) of Bavaria. The programme (“Ralphi”) explained how pens and brushes are manufactured and Faber-Castell was represented by …not Count Anton, but Count Andreas von Faber-Castell, who settled in Australia in the 1970s.
  1. According the the information currently displayed on the BBC iPlayer page the programme will be available online until 2099, if I access the programme with my phone the programme is said to be online for about 300 more days …but usually programmes are only available for a week, so I would not be surprised if this programme will disappear from the iPlayer [↩]

Staedtler’s bling pencils

New from Staedtler for 2011/12 and only available while stocks last: limited edition pencils in six colours. They are triangular shaped and their blingness comes from 3D silver stamps on the barrel that are said to look like crystals1.

I assume there is some similarity between the “crystals” on this pencil and the raised dots on Faber-Castell’s Grip 2001 – even though the position of the crystals on the barrel of Staedtler’s pencil does not seem improve grip.

  1. I assume the silver stamps do not cause problems for the sharpener. [↩]

PeliCard

After reading Pencil Talk’s post about the Pelikan Souverän M101N and after receiving a NOS “old style” Pelikan M200 yesterday (took only two days from Germany to the UK) here something else about Pelikan:

Pelikan released an iPhone App called PeliCard. You can use it to write digital postcards (some of the postcards can be seen here). You can even choose between different (virtual) nibs and colours for your postcards.

My wife used to have an iPhone, but she has another phone now and I don’t have an iPhone either, so I could not try this App out. If you have used this App please let me know what you think about it and whether it is available in English.

STMT X Germany

I just found out that RAD AND HUNGRY’s new stationery kit features Germany. I am not a big fan of rollerball pens, but the Stabilo pointVisco is one of the few rollerball pens I really like – in the last few years I bought many of them, from Cult Pens and from local super markets (Sainsbury’s and Tesco, I think), in all sorts of colours, my favourite colours for this pen1: green and brown. I am not familiar with the manufacturer of the paper clips in this set, but Brunnen, the manufacturer of the notebook is probably the market leader in Germany and offers good quality notebooks for a good price.

  1. normally not exactly my favourite colours [↩]