Mongol Archives - Bleistift

More Mongols

2 Comments / Eberhard Faber, Pencils, Seen in the wild, Uncategorised / 26 February 2016 / Eberhard Faber, Mongol, seen in the wild

Eberhard Faber Mongol pencils at the surrender in Reims (Image © probably Pathé News)

Well, there are not many blog posts about vintage pencils here, but thanks to Henrik’s comments here’s a quick follow up on the previous blog post and the Mongol.

The Mongol is the pencil that was used for taking notes at the surrender in Reims (ending WWII in Europe), while the Parker 51 was used to sign the actual documents.

If you want to have a closer look at these pencils: Sean has a blog post about the Mongols made in 1944, near the height of U.S. production for the Second World War.

I believe that the use of the image shown in this blog post, falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

More Mongols:

Lexikaliker has a nice Mongol ad from the 1920s and on Sola’s blog you can admire some of the Mongol’s great packaging.

…and just earlier this week Jinnie had a look at the Mongol 482

There also more Mongol spotting going on at Orange Crate Art, actually so much that I only picked one to link to. Michael has some great Mongol ads, too. This one is on my wall in the office.

Pencil economics and the Mongol

1 Comment / Uncategorised / 25 February 2016 / CW Pencils, Freakonomics, Mongol, More or Less, The Pen Addict, Tim Harford

In Episode 193 of the Pen Addict Brad and Myke mentioned a recent Freakonomics Radio ^[1]Depsite the name it is a podcast. episode called Who Needs Handwriting?.

I read the Freakonomics book a few years ago. Funnily enough I got it from a friend who I got to know through this blog after posting about a Mongol sharpened with an angle of 14° ^[2]It’s funny because in the next sentence there’ll be a connection back to the Mongol..

Well, the next episode of Freakonomics Radio looked at “I, Pencil”, the famous economics essay about the Mongol 482. Just like in the previous episode Caroline Weaver from CW Pencils was involved ^[3]…and to my surprise she says her shop is profitable, which I wouldn’t have expected thinking about how expensive rent in New York must be, as well as flying around the world to the … Continue reading.

Venezuelan Mongols — Ok, it’s not the 482, but the 480, but the Mongol 482 photos from my blog look less suitable for this blog post than this one does.

One of the best bits of this episode is Tim Harford’s appearance. He’s the guy behind the Radio 4 Programme More or Less, looking at numbers and statistics in the news and everyday life. I listen to every episode of his great programme.

There’s also a great part about the General Pencil Company and how they make their pencils.

Funnily enough the photo of the I, Pencil Freakonomics Radio episode doesn’t feature a Mongol, but the good, old Noris!

References[+]

References
↑1	Depsite the name it is a podcast.
↑2	It’s funny because in the next sentence there’ll be a connection back to the Mongol.
↑3	…and to my surprise she says her shop is profitable, which I wouldn’t have expected thinking about how expensive rent in New York must be, as well as flying around the world to the different trade fairs.

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More Venezuelan Mongols

Leave a Comment / Pencils, Sanford / 22 January 2015 / Made in Venezuela, Mongol

After I recently received some Venezuelan Mongols Sean told me that you can get them very cheap on eBay.com. I normally prefer hexagonal pencils, but hey, they are Mongols! I didn’t expect to get them that cheap: I got three dozen Venezuelan Mongols, including express delivery to the UK, for $12.94 (~ £8.50; €11.10). Sending them within the UK, using express delivery, would probably have cost nearly as much.

The parcel was stuck in customs for a while and has officially been opened by Her Majesty’s Customs for inspection – I assume that is less of a coincidence and more because Venezuela borders Columbia, which seems to be a big exporter of drugs.

Too bad I haven’t found anyone yet who is selling the other Mongols that are still around: the ones from the Philippines.

…and there’s already more exciting stationery on its way. Shangching is trying to get me a Pentel Orenz ^[1]Should I really spell it all lower case?, which I got to know through Lexikaliker, and I also ordered a Zebra DelGuard, a mechanical pencil that looks a bit like a Kuru Toga, but that is using springs to protect the lead from breaking due to too much pressure. I hope to review the DelGuard very soon after it arrives (which might take a few weeks as it’s coming from Japan).

Price and exchange rates: January 2015

References[+]

References
↑1	Should I really spell it all lower case?

turo.pencil.land

3 Comments / Pencils, Sanford / 8 January 2015 / Made in Venezuela, Mongol, Paper Mate, Turo

Bleistift, or should I say Bleistift’s alternative address, http://pencil.land has its first subdomain: turo.pencil.land

Well, ok, it is actually the second subdomain. For a day or so there was http://penciltalk.pencil.land, a mirror of Pencil Talk – after Pencil Talk went offline I put a mirror up so that the content is still available on the web. I did ask whether that’s ok, but put the mirror up before I got an answer.

It turned out that Stephen, the man behind Pencil Talk, who enriched all our lives with so many exciting pencil posts prefers that there’s no mirror, so at the moment I’m still hoping that Pencil Talk will come back one day in the future and pencil fans are still using archive.org to access his old blog posts.

Turo.pencil.land is the site of a former student of mine who, as a hobby, creates amazing pencil drawings linked to popular culture.

…and that’s not the only pencil link. As he’s originally from Venezuela his drawings (so far) have been created using the Mongol 480, which he says is hugely popular in Venezuela. I got some Mongols from him: the round version (480), which is made in Venezuela. Nice!!!

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