When I bought the Chinese New Year pens from BIC I also put a few more items in the basket to get free shipping. One of them was the BIC Silver Set: Seven silver-ish pens and a silver-ish notebook. The official UK price is £16.99 (~$22.70; €20.50). I saw which pens will be included, but didn’t know what to expect in terms of material. Will some of them have a metal body?
In case you wonder: all of the pens are plastic-y, none have a metal body. The 2mm Criterium lead holder would have been amazing with a metal body – a bit like the Caran d’Ache Fixpencil 884. The American made marking pencil is quite interesting. You can use it to mark any(?) surface with nice, opaque silver-grey paint – good to label black plastic or metal.
I really like that the packaging shows where the different pens are from.
Price and exchange rates: March 2022
The chrome Bic Cristal is something else – it’s got a really 1940s-futuristic vibe to it. It looks like what I imagine Golden Age sci-fi writers pictured pens looking like in the 2020s.
It’s a shame about the Criterium being plastic. I nearly bought one on Amazon a while back, thinking it would be aluminium like the Fixpencil. It would be a lovely bit of kit if it was. I’m glad I didn’t now.
I also meant to say: I love the origin information on the back too. Bic have a broader global manufacturing presence. I thought they just made things in France, Mexico, and China because those are the only three countries I’d ever seen on their products (and usually in that order of frequency).
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Where can this be purchased?
I bought it from the official BIC site, but it might not be available in every country. Is it available where you live?
I own a couple of Criterium lead holders from the 1950’s, which were made out of aluminum in a handsome mirror-polished finish. Those are a real treat for the pencil enthusiast!
So a while back, when a vendor from Canada appeared on Amazon’s US website selling a BIC Criterium in metal, I was immediately hooked. Then I got this plastic pencil in return. To say that I was disappointed, is an understatement. Turns out the bad translation engine twisted metal-grey into metal body!
Still, it’s nice to now that they still produce such an iconic lead holder (I understand Criterium is synonymous to lead holder in France). To the best of my knowledge, this is the only lead holder that has an integrated eraser. In my part of the world, Criteriums are once-in-a-lifetime unicorns, sadly.
About that criterium – I have one that looks the same, and it is made of thin aluminum, which flexes while the pencil is held in the hands while making a bending motion. It will flex back to its original shape, but of course at your own risk. Additionally I have sanded the grip section to smooth out the edges a little, for comfort.
Thanks for your comment. That is a surprise. Do you know how old the aluminium version is?