Search Results for: korea

The Monami 153 – outside Korean, inside German

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Today: a quick follow-up post about one of the pencils, the Monami 153, from the recent giveaway.

A few weeks ago the Monami was sent to the winner, but before I sent it I had a quick look at the pencil. What to expect from this ‘review’? This blog post is rather short, as I don’t have the pencil anymore to take more photos. It basically just links to the video review and gives some simple information about the 153.

By the way, if the giveaway winner of the Monami 153 reads this: please let me know whether the pencil has arrived. I kept the receipt from Royal Mail, just in case it’s lost.

Monami

Originally the Monami 153 was a humble, cheap plastic ballpoint pen. This mechanical pencil is part of a release of the Monami 153 in ‘posher’ materials. You’ll find a more detailed explanation about this re-release and Monami’a anniversary in the video review.

The previous Monami pencil I reviewed, the MP-4003, was quite bling. The 153 is much more understated and shouldn’t make you feel embarrassed if you bring it to a meeting at work.

By the way, Monami seems to have switched writing their name to upper case on products. The older MP-4003 is labelled in camelCase, not as MONAMI, but as MonAmi. I guess there’s a good chance that it is supposed to be pronounced French, presumably being based on the French Mon Amie (‘My Friend’), but this is just speculation on my part.

The Pencil

The pencil itself is fairly heavy…

…and it is longer than other mechanical pencils I looked at recently.

The ‘posh’ version of the Monami 153 is based on Schmidt’s system mechanism. You can see more details about this in the video review. The system mechanism means that there only needs to be one type body being made which can then be filled with a ballpoint refill or with a mechanical pencil mechanism.

This ‘one body for different types of pens’ idea is not so unusual. Staedtler’s Concrete, their pen with a ‘high performance concrete’ body, is, as far as I know, also using one body with different ‘refills’ depending on whether you buy the ballpoint pen or the mechanical pencil. I might buy myself one for my birthday. If I do I will report back.

 

There’s not much more I can add, especially because I sent the pencil to the giveaway winner. Please have a look at the video review for more information.

Well, not only is this Korean pencil gone from our home. Around the same time, I also used up some nice Korean tea I had. I’ll leave you with this image of two nice items from Korean – until next time.

Korean Pen and Korean Tea

 

 

 

 

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Korean pencils in Sweden?

1 Comment / Pencils / / , , ,

Another Hairy Bikers blog post. When they were visiting Sweden in their latest series 2.3 million viewers saw David Myers using an “Office Pencil” that looks suspiciously familiar to the Dong-A Office Pencil.

David Myers using the office pencil (Image © BBC)
David Myers using the office pencil (Image © BBC)

As a comparison, here’s the Dong-A Office Pencil. The problem is: they don’t look identical, just similar – so I assume this is a slightly different pencil. The company logo seems different and the ferrule has another colour.

Dong-A Office Pencil (Image © Dong-A)
Dong-A Office Pencil (Image © Dong-A)

I wonder whether any Swedish reader (I seem to get about 30 a month) can tell me which “office pencil” labelled pencil is common in Sweden.

I have been using Dong-A pencils for many years and like them. It’s a shame they are not easily available in the West …or are they available in Sweden?

Dong-A Fable pencils
Dong-A Fable pencils

The screenshots in this blog post has been taken from Episode Six of The Hairy Bikers’ Northern Exposure. 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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The joy of ink

1 Comment / PaperMate, Uncategorised / / ,

Papermate’s Inkjoy gel pens are really nice. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to get the 0.5mm version in the UK. It’s easier to find a really good deal on the 0.7mm version (finding a good deal is something that happened to me three times in the last two years) than to find the fine version at any price (something that has happened to me zero times in the last two years).

When I came across those three good deals I always bought them and every time I ended up with different versions. My oldest Inkjoys, retractable big barrel ones, were Made in Korea, but the later versions I bought, the retractable 300RT and the capped big barrel ones, were Made in India.

They all write great, but the cap of the capped version is a bit loose and less practical than the retractable version.

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Mechanical Pencil Day is here!

149 Comments / Mechanical pencils / / , ,

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.

Mechanical Pencil Day Prizes

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

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 nth comment.
  2. I will then check whether the nth 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.

References

References
↑1 I guess my personal mechanical pencil day should be 02/03 then 😛
↑2 Tango
↑3 Quebec
↑4 Alfa
↑5 Bravo
↑6 Hotel
↑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 pan-European TV station programmes were announced in different time zones.

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Welcome, PyeongChang

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You might agree that celebrating the start of the Olympic Games with pencils from the host nation is a fitting tribute [1]I got the pencils from Kent of Pencilog fame and the keychain from KBS World Radio..

 

References

References
↑1 I got the pencils from Kent of Pencilog fame and the keychain from KBS World Radio.

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30 kg of Pencils

1 Comment / Dixon, Fila, Pencils, Seen in the wild / / , , , ,

I’d like an eraser, two notepads and 30 kg of pencils, please.

Also: notice the price difference between the first item, a dozen Ticonderogas for £2.69, and the third item, the same product for £19.99.

Startlingly expensive. Yes, I think if I were to tell you how much more expensive it was it would be fair to say that you would be startled. [1]Freely adapted from Chapter 27 of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams, 1987.

(By the way, that’s 643.123% more expensive [2]Said Wolfram..)

PS: Find out more..

References

References
↑1 Freely adapted from Chapter 27 of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams, 1987.
↑2 Said Wolfram.

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Ninety-Nine

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Well, who would have thought that Apple will one day make a pencil case. As far as I can tell their £29 pencil case was released earlier this month. Before you start wondering how you can use it for your pen collection: It can only hold one pen – the £99 Apple pencil.

Time to turn this into a ‘lucky bag’ blog post [1]An expression I got from Gunther and like.. In the UK the Apple pencil is £99, in the USA it’s $99, so let’s stay with the theme of 99 and look at how to say [2]or how to write it, in the case of Roman Numerals this number in different languages:

90 9 (English)

9+90 (German)

9 10 9 (Mandarin, Japanese, Korean)

4 20 10 9 (French)

10 100 1 10 (Roman Numerals)

 

References

References
↑1 An expression I got from Gunther and like.
↑2 or how to write it, in the case of Roman Numerals

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More Vietnamese Monos

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The bottom of the box

This is just a quick follow up, linked to my previous blog post about Lexikaliker’s investigation into the Vietnamese Mono 100s [1]English translation here..

The familiar box…

The Vietnamese Mono…

If the Mono 100 is now made in Vietnam then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Mono (without the 100) is now made in Vietnam, too.

You can see the Made in Vietnam blind stamp against the light (open in a new tab to see clearly)

..and the Dong-A Fable

I would have liked to compare the Japanese and Vietnamese Mono, but everywhere where I thought I’ve seen a non-100 Mono in our house it turned out to be the similarly looking Dong-A Fable [2]To me the Fable is more common than the Mono. A fate I probably share with very few people outside Korea., a pencil that has made a few appearances on this blog since 2009.

The Tombow Mono and the Dong-A Fable

Mono’s history

Well, 1963 is not only the year Terry Farrell, Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine [3]I just had to add a Star Trek fact. , was born. It is also the year the Mono was released. It was ‘kind of’ a successor to the Homo, which was released in 1952, but wasn’t liked by Tombow anymore, or should I rather say: they didn’t like the name anymore, after the

‘diparaging slang-term “homo” became well-known in Japan’ (Tombow Pencil 100 Year History Project Committee, 2013:p.38).

Mono display from the 1960s. ¥60, seen on the display, was the original price, later lowered to ¥50. (Picture from Tombow)

In 1967, for Tombow’s 55th anniversary, the Mono 100 followed ..and two years later there was a Mono eraser, too. I don’t want to bore you with more details, but if you’re really interested, let me know in the comments and I’ll write up more when I have time.

Mono box from the 1960s (Picture from Tombow)

References

Tombow Pencil 100 Year History Project Committee. (2013) The 100 Year History of Tombow Pencil. Tokyo, Tombow Pencil Cp., Ltd.

I bought this dozen straight from Japan and paid just under £9, I think.

Unless otherwise stated pictures in my blog are taken by me. Well, this is one of those ‘otherwise stated’ occasions. The pictures marked as such are from Tombow’s book “The 100 Year History of Tombow Pencil”. In January 2015 Tombow Europe granted me permission to use them in blog posts.

References

References
↑1 English translation here.
↑2 To me the Fable is more common than the Mono. A fate I probably share with very few people outside Korea.
↑3 I just had to add a Star Trek fact.

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Staedtler’s Kakikata Pencils

3 Comments / Pencils, Staedtler / / , ,

 

If you’ve been reading pencil blogs for a while you’ve probably come across Kakikata pencils before. Gunther showed some beautiful ones on his blog, nearly ten years ago, and Stephen had some nice ones, too.

According to one JetPens product page Kakikata means ‘way of writing’. I can’t really comment, it’s now 20 years that I learned Japanese and I forgot virtually everything except the odd katakana ..but other sources seem to indicate that Kakikata means ‘how to write’, which seems to be a better translation, at least for the Staedtler Kakikata pencils I want to show today [1]I assume depending on context it can mean either..

 

They were released in December 2016 and are aimed at school children. An automatic translation of the text on the box also seems to confirm that they are for children (There are warnings like ‘don’t use for anything other than writing’, ‘please be careful when handling’ plus there are also instructions for parents.), as do some of the designs used, but the from what I have seen from the Staedtler Japan page they say adults can use them, too ;^)

Staedler’s Kakikata pencils are made from FSC certified wood in their factory in Thailand, where Staedtler’s Norica and other pencils are made, too. I found out that they are officially being sold in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan, but am not sure whether they will have a different packaging outside Japan, i.e. whether the box will be translated into the local language.

Boys’ toys
Girly
I love how the look of the wood has been integrated into the designs of these pencils, as a background to the motifs used. There are three different packs, all available in HB, B and 2B, with three different pencil designs in each pack. The blue pack (Aorimo あおいも) is boy-themed, the red one (Akaimo あかいも) is girl-themed and the green one (Midori みどり) seems fairly gender neutral.

 

As is common in Japan the pencils are unsharpened and since these are for children there’s also space to write the child’s name on.


Near the end the body is silver or gold stamped with the lead degree (HB, B or 2B) and unlike the Noris or the Mars Lumograph that have lacquer caps the end of this Kakikata pencil is not capped.

..with the 501 180 sharpener
Depending on where you buy it you pay somewhere between ¥700 and ¥900 (~$7, £6; €7) for a dozen.

You can find the original press release at this address, including the product numbers for they various colour and lead grade combinations. 
I would like to thank Claudia Förster for these pencils and for finding out in which countries they’re being sold.

Pencil Talk has even more Kakikata pencils than the ones linked to at the beginning of this blog post, and Jinnie has some, too.

If you want to have a look at a Kakikata felt tip pen have a look at Brad’s post.

The Staedtler sharpener form the last picture has been mentioned before and I’ve made a video review, but the blog post is still waiting to be finished.

There are also other unsharpened Staedtler pencils for the Japanese market. I have mentioned the Lumograph many times, so I’ll spare you the links to those videos and to Gunther’s blog post this time.

References

References
↑1 I assume depending on context it can mean either.

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