SATs are tests used UK primary schools. With the Noris being the most commonly used pencil in primary schools here, it’s no wonder that the Noris is featured in the photo used for this show.
The Noris is certainly a common occurrence in photos and videos whenever the media report about schools. I wonder if the introduction of the upcycled Noris will change this.
In a recent blog post I talked about the new upcycled Noris in the UK. The upcycled version is extruded using a composite wood/plastic material instead of wood. The lead is also extruded and quite different to traditional pencil leads. Glenn, who is a Bleistift blog reader, told me that down South, in London where he lives, the change to the upcycled version of the Noris started last Summer. I guess there’s a higher Noris turnover over there. Around here there are still supermarkets that have not even started stocking the upcycled Noris and only sell the older wood-cased version.
We then also talked about how to recognise if the pencil is upcycled or not. There can be some confusion as I have seen upcycled Noris in the old packaging and Glenn told me that he has seen upcycled Noris pencils that don’t have “Upcycled Wood” written on the barrel.
Here’s a little video that spells out how to recognise which version you are seeing (based on wood grain and lacquer near the cap).
A few weeks ago Gunther told a few pencil friends, including me, that Staedtler’s Noris is now made from upcycled wood. Upcycled Wood is the material formerly known as Wopex. These pencils are extruded and use a wood-plastic composite instead of wood.
Wood-plastic composites were invented in the 1960s in Italy, but they are not commonly used for pencils. I assume that no other manufacturer spent as much effort as Staedtler to make wood-plastic composites suitable for pencils.
The new upcycled Noris in a British supermarket
Well, today I saw the new upcycled Noris for the first time in the UK. Packaging was not consistent, at least not in the supermarket where I saw them:
Packaging variations included:
upcycled pencils in packaging that indicates it contains upcycled pencils and
wood-cased pencils in packaging that doesn’t mentioned upcycled wood
there were also upcycled pencils in the old packaging that didn’t make it explicit that the pencils inside were made with upcycled wood.
I wonder if the new upcycled Noris pencils will change the way schools here in the UK buy pencils. They provide pencils to primary school pupils for free, to be used in the classroom, and most of them buy Noris pencils. Will they be fine with the changes? ..or will they not like the differences? ..or maybe the schools won’t notice the difference? I really wonder…
My first impressions are that, like previous Wopex pencils, the difference between different grades, e.g. 2B vs 2H, is not quite as pronounced in the upcycled Noris as it is in a traditional wood-cased Noris. In the video I link to here I used Leuchtturm paper where the difference between grades is very small. On other paper, like Tomoe River for example here is a huge difference between the different grades.
If you sharpen an upcycled Noris to a very fine point then that point is not as break resistant as the point of a traditional Noris. It is however more break resistant than the point found on earlier Wopex pencils.
On the plus side the upcycled Noris, when sharpened right, has a very nice, waxy-smooth feel to it when writing – the opposite of scratchy.
From left to right: wood-case Noris, Wopex, upcycled Noris
Find out more about the upcycles Noris in this video:
The Lego dots set number 41957 features what looks to me like a Staedtler Noris.
Perceptions may vary, so you might not see a Noris there, but with Lego being from Denmark, where the Noris is common, I think there is a good chance that a Noris was the inspiration for Lego’s Dots pencil.
Despite being set in the USA, Skydance’s [1]The company behind Top Gun: Maverick, Jack Reacher and Star Trek Beyond (i.e. Star Trek 13) new animation “Luck” features what seems to be a Staedtler Noris.
In case you wonder why a Noris, or should that be ‘a 3D model of a Noris’, made it into this scene: The movie was produced by an animation studio in Madrid which explains the appearance of a very common European pencil in a story set in the USA.
I believe that the use of the the screen shot of this pencil, taken from the movie “Luck” falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
