If you ever go to Shanghai you should visit FuZhou Road. This road is famous for its book stores (including the Shanghai Foreign Language Bookstore), but you will also find many stationery shops there. After seeing the sheer number of different stationery shops, focussing mainly on calenders, note books, diaries, tools used for Chinese calligraphy (like brushes, paper, inkstones) and stationery, you might be disappointed when you actually want to buy stationery: the choice is smaller than expected because many of the shops sell exactly the same items. Other places in Shanghai that sell stationery are big supermarkets (Carrefour, E-mart) or small stationery shops you can normally find near universities.
Keyroad, a relatively new shop on FuZhou Road, is offering items quite different to those offered in the more old-fashioned stationery shops nearby. Targeting Japanophile students, only about half of the space is used for stationery, the other half is used for things like mugs, gloves, toys, etc. Most of these other items are for girls, quite expensive, cute and conjure up associations with Japan, Korea or Taiwan.
The selection of sharpeners was not overwhelming, with the focus on cute looking sharpeners, but to my delight I found a rotary sharpener for only ¥ 25 (£ 2.40, € 2.70, $ 3.70). It is model 0635 from Deli, a stationery manufacturer established in 1988 and employing more than 2000 staff. The sharpener has one burr cylinder and even includes a spring-driven holder for the pencil. There is no desk clamp and no regulator for sharpness or point, but I do not think anybody would mind at this price.
The waste container even includes a prism sharpener in case you need to sharpen oil or wax based pencils as they are not suitable for rotary sharpeners. The manual of the sharpener is in Chinese and English, but the English is rather poor and difficult to understand.
Performance:
Performance-wise the Deli 0635 is excellent. The point is very long, even longer than one from a KUM Automatic Long Point. This is a problem for pencils with very soft graphite leads, for colour pencils or for pencil users who use a lot of pressure when writing or drawing, as the point might brake easily. I have not yet had any problems with the point of graphite leads braking, but I stopped using the Deli 0635 with colour pencils. Even the ones with harder leads, like the Mitsubishi Vermilion and Prussian Blue will brake easily when writing if you are not very careful.
Conclusion:
This is an excellent sharpener at such a low price. As it is a cylindrical cutter it should last quite a while without getting blunt. More expensive sharpeners have a desk clamp and let you adjust whether you want a long or short point, but if you like a sharp point and do not want to clamp your sharpener (I assume most people don’t) the Deli 0635 offers fantastic value for money.
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Exchange rates: February 2010
As you say, it seems a pretty good deal for that price.
Great pictures! Thanks for this post.
Excellent, extensive review. You mentioned many good points about the Deli 0635 but in my view you didn’t mention the most obvious point which you mentioned over on Penciltalk – http://www.penciltalk.org/2011/07/classroom-friendly-pencil-sharpener/comment-page-1#comment-178138 – the rubber coated grippers which don’t mar the surface of your pencils. The Carl Angel-5 ruins the surface of my otherwise pristine Palomino Blackwings, and this is even more noticeable on a PBW where there is no lettering getting in the visual way of these horrid jaw marks. I will be ordering a Mitsubishi KH20 (or your review model if I can find it online anywhere) which also has padded grippers. Its only the comments from bloggers which allows me to determine which of these types of sharpeners have or don’t have padded grippers. Strange I can’t find this information from the advertising of manufacturers.
I have no connection to the seller (other than that I just ordered one), but folks can get this little sharpener on eBay right now from a seller who has a lot of them.
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
I have this little sharpener…again on memms recommenadation in this post. Mine is not quite as good as yours memm – the point, I would call a short long point and not as sharp as a carl angel 5 (which is the king of long, sharp points). It still does plenty of service though for the initial sharpening of new, unsharpened pencils…then I switch to the Carl Angel 5 for the final sharpening. Certainly well worth the price, but watch out for those with big hands as the knuckles tend to get scraped turning the handle as there is little clearance to the surface below.
Thanks for your comments.
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.
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