Last time I was in Germany I discovered a second hand book shop in Würzburg that also displayed stationery in the shop windows. The stationery on display seemed to be a mix of items I have seen in Lexikaliker’s blog and in Manufactum’s catalogue, but there were also a few items I have not seen anywhere else.
Zerkall & Artesanos del Papel paper
Items I saw there for the first time included paper and envelopes from Zerkall Ingres, mouldmade in a paper mill dating to the 16th century, and cotton/linen paper from Artesanos del Papel in Alicante.
One of the items I bought in this book shop is a paper clip from OHTO, a paper clip looking a bit like a picture frame hanger. The informal name seems to be Japan-Clip. It can hold 20 sheets of 80g paper. The standard clip is nickel-plated, selling for 20c each (25¢, 16p), the posh version for 50c (63¢, 41p) is 18K gold-plated.
Japan-Clips with Faber-Castell eraser on Banditapple carnet
The nice thing about these clips is that they still look good even if they hold many sheets of paper, while ordinary paper clips usually look unsightly if you squeeze too many sheets of paper in. On the other hand ordinary paper clips can hold more sheets of paper and seem to be softer to the paper. When you try to squeeze too many sheets of paper (> 25) into the Super Clip it can damage the paper slightly when you remove the paper clip again.
...compared to ordinary paper clips
After using OHTO’s Super Clips for a while I came to appreciate them as re-usable, temporary clips that hold paper together much better and tighter than ordinary paper clips. The fact that I have two different colours helps to distinguish similarly documents I am working with, e.g. two sets of statistics from different years.
Links:
I found this company selling Zerkall Ingres paper in the USA.
JetPens and Cult Pens do not seem this paper clip and I could not find an American or British online shop selling the Japanese paper clip. RSVP and Modulor are two German online shops that have the paper clip in stock and ship to most countries.
If you have visited the Fountain Pen Network in the past, you might have read about Kaufhof in the Pelikan section. Kaufhof is a German department store chain that – sometimes – has good offers when it comes to Pelikan pens, especially Pelikan fountain pens. Except these special offers their prices and choice of stationery is pretty standard. You can, however, also find more unusual stationery there if you are lucky. On a recent trip to Kaufhof in Würzburg I saw these Esprit pencils. Their selling point is the cloth tag at the end of each pencil. These pencils loos quite nice, but I could not convince myself to buy one of these pencils …so I cannot comment on the quality of the lead or the wood used. The pencils are made in China and have an official retail price of £ 0.85 / $ 1.20 / € 0.95 each.
I think I should start this blog entry with a warning. If you expect this to be a pencil case review you might be slightly disappointed …there is a bit, but not too much, to be written about this pencil case, so to make this blog entry more substantial I will also talk a little bit about the Eberhard Faber brand and include a little bit of information about the pencils they offer in Europe. OK, let’s start:
When I was in Germany in April 2010 I bought this Eberhard Faber pencil case at the Müller store in Volkach, Lower Franconia. Müller is a drug store chain with shops in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia and other countries. The Müller shops I have seen so far had a nice selection of stationery.
Keeping the size of the shop in Volkach in mind they had a rather big stationery section. All the common products and brand were stocked …those that you would find in most shops in Germany, i.e. mainly Staedtler, Faber-Castell and for mechanical pencils the common Japanese brands as well.
You will also find some Lyra pencils, but don’t get your hopes up if you are looking for niche products. You will certainly find sharpeners, but if you are want a specific model not from Staedtler or Faber-Castell, but from Dux, M+S or Eisen you will be disappointed …but to be fair: not many stationery shops stock these brands anyway.
One of the reasons why I bought this pencil case was to get it while it is still available. Eberhard Faber was an American brand, but was sold to Faber-Castell. Since the 1990s Sanford owns it and as far as I know Eberhard Faber products disappeared more or less completely in the USA. If this is not the case and Eberhard Faber articles are still available in the USA I would be grateful if you could let me know. Not uncommon in such a case: another company held the trademark for another geographic area, in this case Staedtler continued to use the Eberhard Faber name in Europe [1]This reminds me of Grundig, I mentioned them recently in another blog entry. Recently Staedtler sold the Eberhard Faber trademark, which now belongs to Faber-Castell. My understanding is that current Eberhard Faber products will not completely disappear, but will instead be sold under the Staedtler name in the future.
Eberhard was the brother of Lothar von Faber, the great-great grandfather of Count Anton Wolfgang, the current CEO of Faber-Castell. Originally Eberhard managed the subsidiary in New York and later he established his own company under his own name (see page 8 of the 2 / 2007 issue of Faber-Castell topics).
If you want to know more about the Eberhard Faber brand: page 5 of the 1/2010 issue of Faber-Castell topics has a great article about the history of the Eberhard Faber brand.
Back to the pencil case. The pencil case was €14.99 ($19.90, £ 12.45) and is filled with 17 pencils (all of them triangular shaped), an eraser, a ruler, a sharpener, 6 ink cartridges and a timetable. The material of the pencil case is real leather, but unfortunately the leather is rather thin. Four of the pencils are the Tricki Dicki highlighter pencils in neon colours: yellow, orange, green and red. The pencil case was available in three different colours: tan, black and maroon, the one I bought. Just for your information: In Germany maroon is usually referred to as “Bordeaux red”.
Eberhard Faber Tricki Dicki highlighter pencils
Although possibly not the best choice of name for English speaking countries, these pencils work very well, but like all highlighter pencils they cover written or printed letters to some extent. They look very similar to the Staedtler textsurfer dry, so I assume the Tricki Dicki and the textsurfer dry might actually be the same pencil. The circles, stars and triangles printed on the Tricki Dicki pencils can also be found on Staedtler’s new learner’s pencil. I could not find a direct equivalent to the other colour pencils from the pencil case in Staedtler’s product range. The most similar pencil seems to be the Staedtler ergosoft, but unlike the ergosoft, the Eberhard Faber 1410 colour pencils do not have ABS coating.
Eberhard Faber colour pencils 1410
The sharpener that comes with the pencil case is the Möbius+Ruppert double hole magnesium sharpener 0211. The white eraser that you get does not have anything printed on it.
The Eberhard Faber Lederetui is a tri-fold pencil case with the fold-out part containing a timetable on one side and the ruler, the ink cartridges and three 1210 pencils on the other side.
I am not sure whether there is an equivalent pencil that is being sold under the Staedtler name. If there is one it might be the triangular Noris Club.
The Eberhard Faber 1210 pencils are very nice indeed, rather dark and not scratchy. They do however look relatively boring and I have to admit that I am less of a fan of triangular pencils than most other people.
Eberhard Faber 1210 pencil
Conclusion:
The Eberhard Faber Lederetui is great value for money. You get quite a few pencil and a nice sharpener for your money. Compared to high-end pencil cases like the Sonnenleder Lasse it does however feel a bit flimsy and the leather, even though it is real leather, feels quite plasticy. This pencil case is being sold to school children, therefore the thin leather makes me wonder whether the pencil case will survive very long in the real world… Nevertheless I am sure it will last for a long time if you look after it.
Links:
Staedtler press release about selling the Eberhard Faber trademark to Faber-Castell
On a recent trip to Belgium I saw this pack of notepads in a Carrefour corner shop. Carrefour is one of the largest supermarket chains in the world, but there are many countries where they are not present (yet).
These Carrefour notepads seem to be available in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. The notepads use 80 g paper, are A7 size and have 160 pages.
The orange-coloured cover and the purple (5mm) grid are very similar to Rhodia paper, but even though these notepads are made in France neither the orange nor the purple match the colours of the Rhodia notepad I have at home, so I cannot be sure whether the paper is made by Rhodia or whether it is just a look-alike.
The cover is pre-folded, making it easy to fold it back when writing.
The paper has the same weight as Rhodia paper, but the surface of the paper, as well as the shade of white is also different, making me think it is not Rhodia paper.
Comparison Carrefour / Rhodia notepad
Nevertheless it is very nice paper, it is quite cheap and copes well with pencil and ink.
If you know whether it is made by Rhodia please let me know.
When my wife and I recently walked by The Pen Shop in Manchester’s Trafford Centre we saw an ink blotter in the window. Since it was nice looking and the price was reduced we bought it. My wife will be using it in her office, but the ink blotter brought an old topic up again: Where to get suitable blotting paper from?
I noticed in the past that many shops sell ink blotters, but they do not sell blotting paper. The good thing is that you can buy generic blotting paper and cut it to the correct size.
If you buy exercise books in the German speaking countries they tend to come with a sheet of blotting paper, because in many areas pupils have to write with fountain pens. Finding blotting paper is however more difficult, as there does not seem to be much choice.
Blotting paper is said to have been invented by accident at Lyng Mill in Norfolk, England. There are however different theories about when blotting paper was first used and about its origins (it probably was not invented at Lyng Mill). Blotting paper was very common in the past, when dip pens and fountain pens were more popular and before the invention of blotting paper people used blotting sand.
For my wife’s ink blotter I cut A5 blotting paper to size. The paper I used was made in Austria, produced by Format Werk, Austria’s largest producer of stationery for schools and offices. Their history seems to start in 1968 when their trademark was registered. The Format Werk factory was established in 1976 and in 1997 Herlitz, I mentioned them in an earlier post, bought Format Werk. In 2001 Format Werk became Austrian again, after a management buyout.
The Format Werk blotting paper is carbon neutral and has a pleasant beige colour. It is suitable for blotting, but I have to say that I have seen better blotting paper. The blotting paper (unknown brand) that came with my beechwood ink blotter does not cause feathering. The Format Werk blotting paper sometimes does cause some feathering, presumably because it does not absorb the ink fast enough and is therefore squeezing the ink onto the writing paper. Unless you use a very wet ink and writing paper that does not absorb the ink well this should however not be a problem.
Conclusion:
A good blotting paper, but it could be better. It is not expensive and, commendable, it is carbon neutral.
