Mechanical Pencil Day is here!

It’s time to celebrate! The first ever Mechanical Pencil Day is here.

Why Today?

With the two most popular lead diameters being 0.5mm and 0.7mm the day was set to 05/07 (in the format used in UK, France, Italy, Spain, ..) that’s 07/05 (in the format used in USA, China, maybe Canada) or 5.7. (in the format used in Germany and other Central and Northern European countries). ^[1]I guess my personal mechanical pencil day should be 02/03 then 😛

To celebrate this special day there are, of course, prizes to be won.

Everyone’s Celebrating

CultPens was kind enough to supply more than £50 worth of prizes. They also agreed that I can split these between Bleistift.blog and Stationery.wiki. As part of their Mechanical Pencil Day celebrations they published a blog post from me on their blog yesterday (The picture are not form me, though). Other blogs give out prizes, too. I can’t list all the blogs that offer prizes, as I am not sure who exactly is taking part (this blog post was written before 5 July) but I know that Dave from Dave’s Mechanical Pencils has some fine pencils he’ll hand out. He’s the one who made me aware of Mechanical Pencil Day in the first place. Have a look at his blog for even more chances of winning fine writing gear than if you only take part in my giveaway.

How to Win

OK, here’s what’s on offer and how to win Bleistift’s giveaway prizes. By the way, I won’t force you to follow my YouTube, Facebook or Twitter account to take part in the draw for this giveaway. We’re all adults here and you should decide yourself who you want to follow. Instead of following my social media channels, all you have to do for a chance to win is to leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post.

..and here are the prizes. From left to right we have:

• Representing the UK and Japan: The Cult Pencil 0.5
• Representing Japan and Germany: The Rotring 500 in 0.5
• Representing Korea: The Monami 153 in orange and in 0.5
• Representing Germany: The Cleo Messograf Mechanical Pencil 0.7

How will the winner be decided?

1. I will use a random number generator to get a random number n. I will then check who wrote the n^th comment.
2. I will then check whether the n^th comment is the first comment by a blog reader on this giveaway post. If it is the first comment by a blog reader on this post this reader will get the pencil of their choice. If the comment was written by myself or it was not the first comment I will go back to step one.
   This ensures that I won’t win a prize myself. It also means that you can comment as often as you want, but only one of your comments (the first one) will count for the prize draw.
3. I will then repeat the first two steps until we have a winner for the second pencil. The second winner can choose from the remaining three pencils.
4. Deadline is 11 July 2018 at 12:00 (noon) Zulu time (UTC), that’s 5:00 PDT ^[2]Tango, 8:00 EDT ^[3]Quebec, 13:00 BST ^[4]Alfa, 14:00 CEST ^[5]Bravo, 20:00 CST ^[6]Hotel, 21:00 KST/JST ^[7]India. ^[8]All these time zones remind me of the 1980s and early 1990s when MTV Europe was still free to watch. In Europe, you’re not really used to different time zones, but with MTV Europe being a … Continue reading
5. I will contact you if you’ve won, but if I don’t hear back from you within a week the pencils might be given to someone else or used in another giveaway or contest.
6. The two remaining pencils will be the prizes for the Stationery.wiki contest. You can, of course, take part in both, the Bleistift giveaway and the Stationery.wiki contest. In fact, I encourage you to.

Who can take part?

CultPens sent the pencils to me. I will send them to the winners using Royal Mail. They will usually send items to more or less all countries, but if you live on the ISS or in a research station in Antarctica and are not sure whether they deliver to you you can check on their Country Guide page.

I will send the pen using the cheapest method (this is a free blog after all, with no income from advertising). I think within the UK this is covered up to £20. Internationally the cover might be even higher. If you need the pen sent in a specific way let me know and I will see whether I can accomodate.

Good Luck.