2017

Professor T’s Noris

Since Summer I’ve been trying to write a blog post about real, fake and imagined Staedtler Noris pencils in the UK, but I didn’t manage yet to get all the information together.

Luckily, it’s the holiday season, so even though the blog post about the real, fake and imagined Noris is still a while off, we managed to have a bit time to spare and watched some telly.

Discovering another Noris is of course a great bonus if you watch telly and this time the Noris makes  its appearance in several episodes of the Belgian TV series Professor T.

Here’s an animated GIF. If it isn’t animated on your device you might have to click on it first.

Just to set the record straight. The TV series is called Professor T., but the Staedtler Noris belongs to inspecteur Daan De Winter, played by Bart Hollanders. Here he’s seen playing with his Noris while waiting in the hospital. He seems to like this pencil as he is using it in other episodes, too.

While writing this blog post I realised that there’s a German remake. I wonder whether the remake also features Staedtler’s Noris.

In the UK Professor T. is being shown as part of Channel 4’s Walter presents series. Walter presents started with Deutschland 83, a TV series with Faber-Castell’s 9000.

Here a proper video, depending on your device it might play better or worse than the animated GIF.

I have added this Belgian Noris to the Noris in the Wild page.


The screenshot/animated GIF in this blog post has been taken from Episode One of Season One of the original Professor T. TV series. I believe that the use of the screenshot shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

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Merry Christmas

Where I’m from Christmas Eve is the ‘main’ Christmas day, so today is a good day for me to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

The big character on the left of this Christmas card means ‘dream’, the ones on the right mean ‘fortune’.

As a little bonus: here’s a link to an article I found today – from the Guardian. It contains references to coloured pencils from Berol and Faber-Castell, the A4 paper size, Myriorama cards and more.

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Stationery Factlets #2: Hobonichi’s Extra and Bonus Pages

Welcome to the second Stationery Factlets post. Again, this might not be new to you, but it is something that doesn’t get mentioned often.

This factlet is just in time for starting your new diary in 2018.

Hobonichi is offering Extra and Bonus Pages. These are extra sheets you can print for your and stick into your Hobonichi. Some Extra or Bonus Page are available in several formats (Original, Cousin or Weeks) while others are only available in one format. They cover all kinds of topics. One example is a page to record who you sent New Year’s cards to and who you received New Year’s cards from. Another one example is a size conversion chart.

Have a look at the original web page here

http://www.1101.com/store/techo/ja/download/?device=pc

..or at this Google Translation.

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Staedtler’s new 925 15 mechanical pencil

 

Today: a quick look at Staedtler’s new 925 15 mechanical pencil. Another pencil I got to know from Gunther.

The 925 15 came out in November 2017, has an official price of ¥500 (~$4.40; £3.30; €3.75) and is available in 0.3mm, 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm.

In my opinion, it looks absolutely stunning. The grip section is made from Elastomer. One thing to note: as it is rather rubbery little bits of fibre or dust will easily stick to the grip section.

The push button looks quite different to the push button found on other members of Staedtler’s 925 family. By the way, I have no idea how the numbers after 925, in this case, 15, are assigned. They don’t seem to be in chronological order, but they also don’t seem to indicate how cheap or expensive the pen is. The 925 15 has a much smaller push button than its relatives and comes with a hole. I couldn’t think of any practical use for the hole (checking whether the eraser is used up?) – the only reason I could think of was the same reason why pen caps have holes, so that air can flow in case anyone (most likely children) swallow the cap and it is stuck in the windpipe. ジムキング confirmed that this is the most likely reason for the hole in the push button.

Here’s a family photo with some other 925s.

Top to bottom: 900 25, 925 15, 925 25, 925 35, 925 65, 925 85

The 925 15 is so nice, it deserves a centrefold picture. If it was a bit heavier and had a sliding sleeve it would probably become my daily mechanical pencil.


Price and exchange rates: December 2017

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Challenges

Recently, I had the pleasure of talking to Sabine Syfuss-Arnaud, a journalist from the leading French business magazine Challenges. She was writing an article about Faber-Castell and its new CEO Daniel Rogger.

We talked about his plans for China and the factories in Germany, Brazil and China. You might have guessed that I had to mention Staedtler in that conversation (of course) before we talked about what makes the best pencils and other topics.

Challenges N°545 – 7 Décembre 2017

Her article is out now (Challenges N°545 – 7 Décembre 2017).

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