The time it takes to read most blog posts at Bleistift is probably a bit longer than the time most readers are willing to spend on reading them – so in an attempt to keep blog posts shorter I’ll talk about my trip to Shanghai, where I bought some nice stationery, before writing more about what I bought in two further blog posts.
Shanghai
In December I’ve been in Shanghai again. Unfortunately there wasn’t much time while I was there, so I only managed to see some more stationery in shopping malls I happened to pass and to visit one proper stationery shop.
It’s not an uncommon sight to see little, open Lamy shops in Shanghai’s shopping malls. I have mentioned this in the past. As in previous years prices are more expensive than in Europe, roughly 50% more, but that depends on the specific pen you’re looking at. On a positive note: it is not uncommon to see limited edition pens from previous years that are hard to get in Europe. Funnily enough I’ve seen Lamy being sold in several places, but I haven’t seen Chinese Lamy copies, like the Hero 359 or the Jinhao 599 anywhere.
This time I’ve also seen Kaweco pens for the first time in Shanghai, it was in one of the more expensive shopping malls, called Réel, near Jing’An Temple.
The proper stationery shop I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post is a shop on Xiangde Road in Shanghai’s Hongkou district. I have visited this shop in the past. It’s not too big and there’s not too much choice when it comes to wood cased pencils, but the shop has a lot of other stationery, from the kind of stationery for children and students, like different kinds of papers, brushes, scissors to all sorts of stationery small companies would buy.
In the past I have bought lots of erasers and sharpeners in this shop – so, of course, I couldn’t resist buying more some erasers and sharpeners this year.
The two most exiting items I bought were, without any doubt, Faber-Castell’s blue dust free eraser and Deli’s 0620 sharpener.
Wow, beautiful photos. And yes, that certainly looked like eraser paradise. Those notebooks looked great too, did you pick up any?
Oh, thanks. Except the first one they’re all from my mobile phone. I did pick up two, but by the time I’m back in Europe they’re often a bit bent, I tried to be careful this time, but they have nevertheless suffered a little bit.
Ah, lovely set of photos – evokes the feeling I get walking into art supply shops (that rack of notebooks in particular!) Looking forward to hearing more about your purchases!
Matthias, why was the Faber-Castell blue dust-free eraser so exciting?? It’s my everyday eraser, you can buy it anywhere. Or are they not available in the UK?
And the masking tape selection is very tempting 🙂
It’s always great to discover a new stationery or art supply shop. I wish there were more around. Even more exciting is when you then discover some unusual or old item you never even knew existed.
The blue eraser isn’t available in the UK and I have never seen it before. Dust free erasers are without a doubt my favourites. I prefer them so much more than any other types of erasers and don’t understand why they’re not more popular.
Masking tape is nice, but always so expensive 8^(
Wow! Now that’s what I call stationery heaven 😉 Thank you for these photos!
The blue Faber-Castell dust-free eraser looks very interesting – I wonder if it will be offered in Germany too. I am a little suprised that they have chosen blue of all colours because this is the colour of Faber-Castell’s greatest competitor. But maybe a green one will folllow …
Gunther, do you mean that the FC dust-free eraser is _not_available_in_its_home_country?? For me it is so ubiquitous that I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. I will send a box to each of you next time! 🙂
I haven’t seen it here yet but this doesn’t mean much. I’ll keep my eyes open!
The blue version is made in Malaysia, just like Faber-Castell’s white dust free eraser. I wonder whether there’s a reason why it doesn’t seem to be offered in Europe. Maybe some of the ‘ingredients’? …or maybe dust free erasers are just not popular enough in Europe?
I did contact Faber-Castell about this eraser a while ago, but have not heard back yet. I hope I’ll
Be able to find out more?
Notebook making man plz work on this