Seen in the wild

Alsterhaus in Hamburg

A recent family trip to Hamburg [1]which was my first ever trip to Hamburg included a trip to Alsterhaus, a posh department store that very much reminded us of Harvey Nichols in Manchester.

Excuse the wide angle distortions of the photo but because of construction work I couldn’t move further away

The Alsterhaus sells many posh brands (think Armani, Chanel, Hermes, …), but unexpectedly we also found an extensive selection of stationery brands on one of the higher floors.

Some brands, like Graf von Faber-Castell, S. T. Dupont and Caran d’Ache take up large parts of the stationery corner’s luxury corner, but pens from other brands, like Pelikan and Kaweco, are also in stock.

Despite Alsterhaus’ general focus on luxury brands you can also find affordable stationery items for office and school use.

This includes a great selection of Lamy pens.

Faber-Castell, Leuchtturm and more were also available.

Thanks to my wife I walked away with Caran d’Ache’s Nespresso pencils (more about them at Pencil Talk) and my first ever “Les crayons de la maison” pencils (more about them at Lexikaliker, who discovered that this series is not quite what it is made out to be).

Prices were comparable to what you pay for these items in other shops or online.

This set seems to be the tenth edition, created together with Mizensir, a Swiss parfume firm.

When opening the plastic wrapping you can smell the strong smell from these pencils.

At this stage it is not completely clear whether the different pencils have different smells that are indistinguishable because they were together in sealed packaging or whether the different pencils have the same smell by design.

References

References
1 which was my first ever trip to Hamburg

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Paper and Pen

My first order from Papier und Stift (translation: Paper and pen) came in. This online shop’s focus is on fountain pens, but there is also a nice selection of non-fountain-pen-stationery.

The main trigger for my order were notebooks with Tomoe River paper, but I couldn’t resist adding a few other small items. I also ordered their ‘magazine’ for €1, which is more of a catalogue than a magazine and features a selection of nice stationery they sell.

The ‘magazine’ reminds me to some extent of a catalogue I got from Carta Pura many years ago.

I scanned my 2010 Carta Pura catalogue recently and hope the company doesn’t mind me sharing it here. I will of course remove it if requested. Your browser should display the pdf below.
In case you wonder: I was very happy with my order and the delivery times.

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Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

My wife made me aware of an interesting book that will be published next month: Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator. The author, Keith Houston, author of “Shady Characters”, has been mentioned on Bleistift before.

You can find out more about the book in this article by the economist: How the pocket calculator paved the way for the digital age.

A random photo of one of my calculators

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