August 2017

Pencil Pot Of The Month – August 2017

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Description: A cup as sent out by Pelikan for the Pelikan Hubs 2017

Price: Pelikan didn’t charge for them. Unknown what Pelikan paid

Material: paper

Further information: Pelikan sent these to Hub Masters for the upcoming Pelikan Hubs that take place all over the world on 22th September 2017, at 18:30 local time.

The pencils in this cup are from a soon to be published blog post about ‘baseball pencils’. The fountain pen in this cup is a Pelikan Go, an affordable piston filler that was targeted at school children.

 

Here’s a little unboxing video of the goodies Pelikan sent.

..and here’s a photo of the Hub Pub and a Pelikan

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Graphite vs Ink

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I was just getting rid of some old documents from my office when I came across three sheets of paper I had written on in 2010 – one with pencil, one with rollerball and one with fountain pen.


All three documents were not exposed to direct sunlight.

The squared paper in the middle shows the rollerball. I am not sure which rollerball this was, but seven years later the text is hardly legible. The once red rollerball is now just a light shade of yellow.

On the right you see the writing from the fountain pen. I am not sure which ink was used, but the writing is much lighter than any ink I would have used at the time. I assume this must be either because of the ink’s properties or the paper or both. The fading can’t just be down to age. I have school notebooks from the early 1980s (ink: Pelikan Royal Blue) that still look great.

On the left you see text written with a pencil. Still as good as on the first day. OK, graphite isn’t darker than black ink, but look how light the ink has gotten in seven years. Maybe in another seven it will be hardly legible while the graphite will still stay dark.

 

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Israel, Italy, Football and Lunch…

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Today: a mixed bag of tidbits

An Isreali pencil

Seen in episode 3 of Israeli TV thriller False Flag (כפולים): an eraser tipped pencil with a natural finish. False Flag is on Fox UK, but the HD version of the TV channel costs money, so I only have a photo of the SD channel where you can’t read the writing on the pencil. I wonder what pencil brands are commonly used in Israel.

False Flag (Image © Keshet Media)

An Italian pencil

Seen in one of my son’s books: a cameo of Staedtler’s Noris in an Italian book (original: Topo Tip non vuole andare all’asilo by Marco Campanella (Illustrator) and Anna Casalis ). He has the German version (Leo Lausemaus), but there is (or was) also an English version (Billy Brownmouse).

Leo Lausemaus Noris (Image © Andrea Dami / Lingen Verlag)
(Image © Stationery Stores FC)

Nigerian Football

Last time I mentioned Nigeria on this blog was when the Nigerian pencil factory was announced that was supposed to employ 400,000 people. That’s not the only Nigeria related stationery item to report on.

Turn out Nigeria even has a football team named after a chain of stationery stores: Stationery Stores F.C.

 

..and something for lunch

Dine in style for under $10.

Dine INK (Image © FRED)

I would like to thank Val for telling me about the Dine INK. 

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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A visit to Shanghai’s Baixin Bookstore

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There’s one video I missed out in my previous series of Shanghai related blog posts: A visit to Shanghai’s Baixin Bookstore in August 2017.

The video is very shaky. Don’t watch if you get dizzy easily.

I couldn’t resist and bought the Delguard in 0.3mm.

Some of the stationery in this video:
0:35 Campo Marzio
0:42 Kaweco
0:57 Picasso
1:05 Parker
1:26 Sheaffer
1:34 Lamy
1:48 Pelikan
1:58 TWSBI
2:08 Juice
2:11 Pilot
2:15 Sarasa
2:22 Stabilo
2:25 Orenz
2:27 Schneider
2:44 Mono
3:00 DelGuard
3:34 Carl

If you liked this video: here’s a small selection of more Shanghai related videos and blog posts.

Visiting the Life by city’super store in Shanghai 

Visiting Lamy’s store in Shanghai’s Raffles City

Visiting a stationery store on Shanghai’s FuZhou Road

Lamy at Raffles City in Shanghai 

Shanghai stationery 

Overpriced stationery in Shanghai 

Muji’s Low Centre of Gravity Mechanical Pencil 

Lamy’s Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean pens 

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Worst pencil museum / Postcards / Pencil+

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There are a few small things I want to mention that all didn’t make it into their own blog posts.

Pencil Museum

Last Sunday Sue Perkins was asking BBC Radio 2 listeners about their worst Sunday activities and gave visiting a pencil museum as an example ? (about 7 minutes into recording I linked to). Well, I enjoyed my visit to the pencil museum very much …and I guess the listeners, too, as none of them mentioned visiting the pencil museum as their worst Sunday activity.

Postcard Campaign

This morning our friend Phoebe Smith, editor of Wanderlust magazine, was on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme (about 41 minutes into recording I linked to), having a look at the postcards Radio 4 has received as part of their campaign to revive the use of postcards. I think the postcard campaign is a great idea, especially with the postcard having many friends in the stationery community, such as East…West…Everywhere’s Shangching, Banditapple’s Arnie and many more.

Pencil+

When searching on Google for something rather unrelated this morning I came across Pencil+, an upcoming Kickstarter. I thought I share the link with you, but I don’t have any further information (price, start date, …) and have not been in contact with the people behind the pencil.

Pencil+ (Image © Pencil+)

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

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