December 2016

Pencil Pot Of The Month – December 2016

ppotm-december1

Description: A pencil pot made from fabric and leather. Made in Japan by Horishima based United Bees.

Price: Unknown, it was a gift

Material: Leather (handle) and a fabric similar to what you find on backpacks

Further information: I got this pencil pot as a gift from Yumiko from Japan (Thanks). It comes with a cross type divider you often get with pencil pots – when you look from the top a cross divides the pencil pot space into four equal sections. I saw on the label that it is made in Japan, but didn’t want to check the manufacturer’s web site for more info as I thought that would bring me to the price and it didn’t feel right to  look up the price of a gift.

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Kaweco justice

Not sure why, but the artist who drew the fountain pen on the cover of this brochure from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice decided to even draw the Kaweco logo on the fountain pen. 

In case you wonder, the advice on the brochure is about preparing for old age etc and what documents to fill in. 

Seen in a book store. 

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Inventors and their Staedtler pens – then and now

1960s

Denys Fisher and a Staedtler lead holder
Denys Fisher and a Staedtler lead holder (Image © BBC)

Unfortunately leadholder.com doesn’t work 100% at the moment. Many of leadholder.com’s images will not display, so I can’t be sure whether this is a real Staedtler lead holder or a copy ..but for now, because of the blue colour, I assume that Denys Fisher, the inventor of the Spirograph, used a Staedtler lead holder in these photos.

Denys Fisher and a Staedtler lead holder
Denys Fisher and a Staedtler lead holder (Image © BBC)

2016

Haiyan Zhang came up with an invention that helps Parkinson’s sufferers to be able to write and draw again – and it all started with her Staedtler pens.

Haiyan Zhang and her Staedtler pens
Haiyan Zhang and her Staedtler pens (Image © BBC)

 


The screenshots have been taken from The Toys That Made Christmas and The Big Life Fix with Simon Reeve. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post, falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

 

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Field Notes Black Ice

 

Here’s a look at the “Bright White” Finch Fine Smooth 70# text paper found in the new Field Notes Black Ice.

As in previous blog posts I have created violin plots of graphite samples on the  different papers.

To read under what conditions the graphite is put on the paper please read the explanation in Lunatic Paper or other blog posts.

four-field-notes

Field Notes comparison plus samples
The samples and their violin plots

Colour base paper shift

Previous samples were automatically adjusted by the scanner, so the violin plots were all closer together than they should have been, i.e. the base colour of the paper didn’t make a big difference.

This has now been changed, explanation in the video, so the results are more objective, but also feel more difficult to compare.

Conclusion

The finch Fine paper used in the Black Ice Field Notes is great, nearly as good as the Boise paper in the County Fair editions. For my purposes, i.e. writing with pencils, it is miles better than the Finch Opaque paper used in the original Field Notes.

One small issue with the Black Ice though: the paper at the bottom of some of my notebooks was ripped, see photo. Even though the shrinkwrapping was intact this might have happened in transport as my Field Notes calendar was also damaged in transport.

Ripped
Ripped

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