Deutschland 83

After The Game: Another TV series about cold war spies. Sean told me about this one. It’s called Deutschland 83 and its current IMDB rating is 8.5.

As the name suggests it takes place in 1983. Here’s a Castell 9000 in B you can see in episode 4, used by Professor Tischbier (Alexander Beyer) from the East German Secret Service.

A Castell 9000 in B (Image © UF Fiction)
A Castell 9000 in B (Image © UF Fiction)

Faber-Castell pencils from 1983 – sounds familiar, you might remember this previous blog post about the Castell 9000 pencils for their 222nd anniversary – that anniversary was in 1983.

Here’s a comparison of the modern Castell 9000, as seen in Deutschland 83 – with the water-based varnish side facing the camera, and the actual Castell 9000 from 1983. The green got even darker, the thick line on the end of the pencils changed from gold to silver/grey and the text printed on the pencils has changed.

Castell 9000, 1983 and now
Castell 9000, now (top) and 1983 (bottom)

The screenshot in this blog post has been taken from Episode Four of Deutschland 83. I believe that the use of the screenshot shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

5 thoughts on “Deutschland 83”

  1. Thank you for the screenshot and the comparison. A modern 9000 pencil in the hands of an East-German secret agent from the 80’s – I find that quite odd. I guess the one who was in change for the props hasn’t consulted a pencil expert 😉

  2. Thank you for your comment.
    It’s not as bad as it sounds, in the TV series he is working in the West. Reminds me of your blog post about the GDR pencils.
    If they hadn’t shown the water-based varnish side of the Castell 9000 it wouldn’t have been so obvious.
    In Deutschland 83 NATO and Federal Armed Forces are using yellow/orange pencils similar to the ones in The Game.

  3. What bugs me most about this screenshot is the fact you can see the URL on the pencil.

  4. Thanks for the post. I’m curious: do you notice a difference in the way the older versions write/draw in comparison to the current models?

  5. Simon, I agree. That wouldn’t have happened if they had taken a Noris. I am happy that the Castell 9000 they used was not as long as a new one. I wonder whether it had been used by the people who made this TV series, e.g. to sketch things.

    Pablo, good question. I haven’t done an extensive comparison, but to me the old 9000 feels softer when you write with it, but the new 9000 produces slightly darker lines, which seems counterintuitive. Normally softer = darker. This was just a quick comparison though, if you use them properly over a long time you might get a better idea of the differences.

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