A video of the prize draw has been uploaded yesterday. Here it is in case you want to watch it.
The comments left by both winners indicate that both would have liked to receive the Monami.
In the previous post there were links for each one of the four pencils. Even though the Monami was wanted by both winners it wasn’t the pencil most blog visitors clicked on. Measured by link clicks here is the order of ‘pencils of interest’: #1: Messograf, followed by the Cult Pencil, then the Monami and finally the Rotring 500.
The prizes: Monami 153 and Cult Pencil
Cristian from the USA, our first winner, will get the Monami 153. Elijah from Australia, our second winner, asked for the Cult Pencil. The pencils will be sent out soon.
That means the Messograf and the Rotring will become the prizes in Stationery.wiki’s Mechanical Pencil Day Contest. If our judges come up with different favourites to win the contest there might be up to two additional prizes. I will add my OHTO Conception to the pencil prize pot.
Prizes for Stationery.wiki’s Mechanical Pencil Day Contest
So far we have two participants competing for prizes (plus one participant who takes part without competing for the prizes). With up to four pencils available as prizes taking part seems like an easy way to win a mechanical pencil. If you are interested, please visit Stationery.wiki’s Mechanical Pencil Day Contest page.
Stationery Wiki Mechanical Pencil Day Contest Participants
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:
I will use a random number generator to get a random number n. I will then check who wrote the nth comment.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I love sliding sleeve pencil and am a big fan of Pentel’s Orenz, so naturally, I couldn’t resist when, last year, I saw a fake Pentel Orenz for sale. Well, I say fake, but this copy doesn’t actually pretend to be an Orenz, nevertheless, it is as close as can be…
Packaging
At the time when I bought it the fake Orenz wasn’t much cheaper than the real thing. I bought mine in November 2017 for £2.23 (~ $3.16; €2.55), but now you can get them for much less (£1.32 or $1.50 with free postage).
Today: a quick look at Staedtler’s new 925 15 mechanical pencil. Another pencil I got to know from Gunther.
The 925 15 came out in November 2017, has an official price of ¥500 (~$4.40; £3.30; €3.75) and is available in 0.3mm, 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm.
In my opinion, it looks absolutely stunning. The grip section is made from Elastomer. One thing to note: as it is rather rubbery little bits of fibre or dust will easily stick to the grip section.
The push button looks quite different to the push button found on other members of Staedtler’s 925 family. By the way, I have no idea how the numbers after 925, in this case, 15, are assigned. They don’t seem to be in chronological order, but they also don’t seem to indicate how cheap or expensive the pen is. The 925 15 has a much smaller push button than its relatives and comes with a hole. I couldn’t think of any practical use for the hole (checking whether the eraser is used up?) – the only reason I could think of was the same reason why pen caps have holes, so that air can flow in case anyone (most likely children) swallow the cap and it is stuck in the windpipe. ジムキング confirmed that this is the most likely reason for the hole in the push button.
Here’s a family photo with some other 925s.
Top to bottom: 900 25, 925 15, 925 25, 925 35, 925 65, 925 85
The 925 15 is so nice, it deserves a centrefold picture. If it was a bit heavier and had a sliding sleeve it would probably become my daily mechanical pencil.
