Staedtler

Anniversaries

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2011 is the year Faber-Castell celebrates its 250 year anniversary (1761 – 2011). Stephen from penciltalk told me about an anniversary set of 6 Castell 9000 pencils that was for sale on eBay. Faber-Castell gave these away at this year’s Paperworld trade fair. Unlike the centennial tins with 12 and 72 pencils, this tin does not contain the normal Castell 9000 pencils you can buy in shops, but Castell 9000 pencils with 1761 – 2011 * 250 years printed on them. They are not available in shops (yet), but according to comments on Faber-Castell’s facebook page Faber-Castell seems to consider producing them for sale. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

Stabilo celebrates the 40th anniversary of their Boss Highlighters. As part of this anniversary there is a giveaway from Tiger Pens, where you can win Boss mugs, and a game from Stabilo where you can win Boss mugs, USB sticks and other prizes (there are different prizes for different countries).

Stephen Wiltshire, using a Staedtler tradition, on BBC's Top Gear (Image © BBC)

Staedtler‘s  historic pencil construction kit will unfortunately not be available in shops. The good news: you can order these kits directly from Staedtler for € 5 each. You can also get Staedtler’s historic Lumograph tin (100 M12H: € 16.20), the historic Tradition tin (Nr. 110 M12H: € 14.40) and the historic Noris tin (Nr. 120 M12H: €  9.60) directly from Staedtler. All of these special items are only available while stocks last. The historic pencil construction kit is not available yet, but can already be ordered.

Staedtler also managed to get the support of Stephen Wiltshire for their pigment liner. Lexikaliker mentioned him in his report about the Paperworld 2011 and I mentioned him previously in this blog post.

The photo of Stephen Wiltshire using a Staedtler Tradition has been taken from Top Gear Episode 5 of Series 14 and has been used previously in a blog post from March 2010 about the Staedtler tradition. I believe that the use of this image falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

 

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Staedtler historic pencil construction kit

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Something very special:

This year Staedtler will offer a historic pencil construction kit. I have seen it in photos taken at their workshop and am really excited that it will be available to buy for those of us who can not attend the workshops.

For more information check this page on Staedtler’s web site.

Update: Staedtler’s German and Austrian web sites have a short video from a trade fair in Linz, Austria. This video  shows how to “assemble” Staedtler’s historic pencil. Unfortunately there are no English subtitles.

I really like that Staedtler refers to this pencil as being historic, instead of historical – because Friedrich Staedtler’s pencils of similar design are such an important part of Staedtler’s history.

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Eraser Bonanza

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In a recent post (“My favourite eraser”) I wrote about the Faber-Castell 18 71 20 Dust-Free eraser. In a comment to this post Henrik mentioned Staedtler’s PVC free eraser, which he said is quite similar. Curios about the Staedtler’s performance I got hold of this eraser andoday I want to write a bit more about this eraser and about the Läufer Oval Office.

The Staedtler 525 B30 PVC-free eraser

What I like most about the recently reviewed Faber-Castell 18 71 20 Dust-Free eraser is that you only need to apply very little force when erasing and that it does erase very thoroughly, much better than most other erasers. To my surprise the material of the Taiwanese-made Staedtler 525 B30 PVC-free eraser seems to be even softer than that of Faber-Castell’s dust-free eraser. It is therefore also no surprise that you do need to apply more force when you use the Faber-Castell eraser. This might be down to the fact that when I compared them the Staedtler eraser was brand new, freshly unwrapped, while one of my Faber-Castells has seen a few months, the other one a few years of use and contact with air. Just like Faber-Castell’s eraser the Staedler is also available in two sizes: the model number of the big one ends with 20, the number of the smaller one ends with 30.

Conclusion: The Staedtler is an exceptionally good eraser. It is not my favourite but comes very close. One disadvantage for me (others might not mind at all) is that the eraser waste does not twists up into strands, which makes it a bit more messy when you want to clean the paper and get rid of the eraser waste – but to be honest, for most erasers the waste does not twist up into strands, so this is nothing unusual.

I bought the Staedtler 525 B30 in November 2010 for 47c (~62¢, ~38p).

Läufer Oval Office

Läufer is relatively well known in Germany for their erasers. In 2004 Läufer merged with Gutenberg, a company some stationery fans might recognise because they supply indelible, permanent ink used for official documents – in Germany many dioceses and government offices use their G10 ink for official documents. As far as I know Läufer & Gutenberg are now part of Société Bic, the company that owns the BIC brand – but I have not been able to confirm this.

The Läufer Oval Office is, in my opinion, an average eraser when it comes to perfermance and the material it is made of. It is mainly interesting because of it’s shape and that is also why I bought it. The Oval Office has the shape of a stretched lens. While the 90° angle of a traditional eraser will soon get too wide for erasing small areas, the shape of the Oval Office means that it can be used for more precise erasing for longer.

Conclusion: A nice eraser I will use occasionally. The shape is practical and looks nice, but performance-wise I would describe this eraser as ‘normal’.

I bought the Läufer Oval Office in November 2010 for € 1.69 (~$ 2.20, ~£ 1.40).

The Staedtler Mars rasor you can see in the photos has been reviewed at pencil talk.

Prices: November 2010

Exchange rates: December 2010

I bought all three erasers in November 2010 from Schule-Uni-Shop. The Staedtler Mars rasor was € 1.37 (~$ 1.80, ~£ 1.15).

On a slighlty unrelated note: If you like Staedtler AND Star Wars, have a look at this article: Staedtler and Star Wars

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Staedtler promotional tins 2011

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Next year Staetdler will release “nostalgic metal tins” as a limited edition. There will be tins for the Mars Lumograph, the Noris and the Tradition (yes,  this time with an upper case “T”).

I assume that that only the tins have the nostalgic look and that  the pencils inside will have the modern look.

Fantastic! I hope I will be able to buy some before they are gone. Getting this years 1835-2010 set was difficult enough.

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Staedtler Inspiration No. 176

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3 October 2010 was not only the 20th anniversary of the German reunification, but also the 175th anniversary of Staedtler [1]Even though Staedtler’s history goes back further, 3 October 1835 is the official ‘birthday’ as it is the first day Staedtler can trace their business back to without interruptions. It was also the last date of their “Fascination of Writing” exhibition.

Happy Birthday Staedtler!


You might have already read about this exhibition at Lexikaliker (Google translation of this article), but I just discovered that there is an article about this exhibition in Staedtler’s latest newsletter Inspiration No. 176 (from August 2010).

To celebrate this special year Staedtler released a 175th anniversary pencil set. You can read more about it at pencil talk.

References

References
↑1 Even though Staedtler’s history goes back further, 3 October 1835 is the official ‘birthday’ as it is the first day Staedtler can trace their business back to without interruptions

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